New Year bookings in Antalya hotels reach 80 pct

ANTALYA

With New Year's Eve around the corner, the occupancy rate in hotels in Türkiye's tourism hotspot of Antalya has already exceeded 80 percent.

Hotels around Türkiye are busy with preparations for New Year's Eve, which this time around falls on the weekend, giving people an opportunity to have a three-day, fun-filled vacation. Especially in Antalya this winter season, an intense demand from Europe and Russia has been seen.

Catholics celebrate Christmas Day on Dec. 24, and Orthodox Christians celebrate it on Jan. 6, and with New Year's Eve, which falls after and before Christmas, occupancy in many of the hotels open for the winter period has reached up to 80-90 percent.

Hakan Saatçioğlu, president of the Professional Hotel Managers Association, said that tourism is recovering better every year after the pandemic in 2020 and that this year-end occupancy is as high as last year.

Stating that New Year's Eve reservations are also going well, Saatçioğlu said, "There are a lot of reservation requests, especially from Russia and the Balkans. We had a lot of reservations last year as well. We made our preparations, we had a very serious demand from the U.K. as well as Europeans."

"There is a serious tourist intensity especially from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Most of the hotels in our region are closed; few are open. Our tourists from abroad can fill them sufficiently at the moment," he added.

"We decorate and illuminate our hotels. During the cold winter months, we try to make our foreign guests experience New Year's Eve as they do in their home countries with New Year's decorations,” he stated.

“Domestic tourism is stagnant. We have very few domestic market guests. There is a density in hotels that organize artists. Hotels in Antalya that organize events with artists are currently full," Saatçioğlu said.

İsmail Çağlar, general manager of a five-star hotel who noted that Antalya crowned the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic with nearly 15.5 million tourists in tourism, said, " A large number of reservation requests came from Germany and Russia. We will give our guests a very nice 15-day process. There are very few places left in the region for reservations."

"Everywhere is already sparkling in our hotels. We will spend New Year's Eve with stunning menus and entertainment programs. Almost all hotels in Antalya are open. There are concerts with famous artists," he added.

Including concerts by famous singers, special programs have been prepared for the New Year, especially in Turkish Cyprus and Antalya, Istanbul, Aegean beaches, ski resorts and thermal resorts.

According to data obtained from tour operators, there is a 55 percent increase in bookings for this New Year's holiday compared to last year.

While the occupancy rate goes 100 percent in many of the hotels that organize programs with artists, the activity in ski resorts will likely increase due to snowfall.