Marmaris offers best value holiday for Britons, survey shows

ISTANBUL

The Turkish resort town of Marmaris has been named among the top best value destinations for British holidaymakers, a survey by the U.K. Post Office has shown.

The depreciation of the Turkish Lira helped Marmaris, on Turkey’s Aegean coast, edge past Sunny Beach in Bulgaria to take the top spot for the first time, the Post Office’s annual Worldwide Holiday Costs Barometer said.

Prices are down in both destinations, but a fall of almost 37 percent year-on-year in Marmaris, compared with 5 percent in Sunny Beach, means that Turkey has become marginally cheaper for British visitors – although just pence separate the two, according to the survey.

Both holiday hotspots are among nine of the 10 best value destinations where prices are down on 2021 levels.

Some 36 destinations were surveyed for the Post Office Worldwide Holiday Costs Barometer, compiled with the help of national and local tourist boards.

Eight items, such as a three-course meal for two with wine, a cup of coffee, a bottle of local beer, a can of Coca-Cola, a glass of wine, a bottle of still water, suncream and insect repellent, were selected as representative of the purchases British tourists are likely to make, and prices were cross-checked by Post Office researchers.

Those eight items are calculated to cost British holidaymakers just 26.13 pounds in Marmaris and 26.16 pounds in Bulgaria’s Sunny Beach. The price of a three-meal course evening meal for two, including a bottle of house wine, in Marmaris is 16 pounds.

Portugal’s Algarve came third while Spain’s Costa Del Sol ranked sixth.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic-related travel restrictions, only 393,000 British citizens visited Turkey in 2021, down from the previous year’s 821,000. In 2020, Turkey welcomed nearly 2.6 million British holidaymakers.

Data from the Tourism and Culture Ministry showed that close to 94,000 Britons visited Turkey in the first two months of 2022, rising more than 1,100 percent from the same period in 2021 and even higher than 89,000 people in the January-February period of 2020.