Domestic tourism spending leaped 80 pct last year
ANKARA
Domestic tourism spending increased by 80.2 percent from the previous year to reach 58.1 billion Turkish Liras ($3.9 billion), data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) have shown.
Total spending domestic travelers made stood at 32.3 billion liras.
Food and drink accounted for 31 percent of all expenditures, while the share of transport was 26.3 percent, the TÜİK data showed.
Accommodation expenditures made up another 14 percent of all spending.
TÜİK reported that individual expenditures stood at 53 billion liras, which marked a 74.5 percent increase from 2020, and spending on package tours amounted to some 5.1 billion liras last year, rising nearly 171 percent from the previous year.
The average expenditures per trip was 1,101 liras, up from 753 liras in 2020.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, domestic tourism spending exhibited a 98 percent increase on an annual basis to stand at 11.5 billion liras, with individual expenditures rising more than 90 percent to 10.7 billion liras.
The TÜİK data also showed that the number of domestic visitors increased by nearly 50 percent from the same period of the previous year to 8.95 million people in the fourth quarter of last year.
The primary purpose of trips the traveler made in the quarter of last was visiting relatives, accounting for a 61.6 percent share, followed by travel, leisure and holiday at 23.6 percent, and health-related travel at 7 percent.
Domestic travelers made more than 10.7 million trips in the fourth quarter, up nearly 49 percent, while average number of overnights was 7.5.
Some 64 percent of people stayed at homes of their relatives or friends when traveling, while 6.6 percent stayed at hotels, according to the TÜİK survey.
With the pandemic outlook improving and the COVID-19-related restrictions eased, people from the industry are optimistic that tourism activity will gather momentum this summer.
