Turkey-based tourists travel less, spends more: TÜİK

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Mardin, a southeastern province, is a top tourism spot. AA photo

Turks are traveling less in their own country even as they are spending more, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute’s (TÜİK) fourth Household Domestic Tourism Survey for 2012.

Domestic tourists made 64.92 trips around Turkey last year, down 1.4 percent over the previous year, but they did spend 16.7 billion Turkish Liras, 6.9 percent more than before.

The aim of the Household Domestic Tourism Survey is to estimate visitor’s profiles, as well as domestic visitors’ trip characteristics and trip expenditures. The survey consisted of both Turkish citizens and resident foreigners who have lived in Turkey for at least 12 months. People under the age of 15 were excluded from the survey.

According to the survey, the number of trips slid to 64.92, 1.4 percent lower than the total in 2011. Travelers spent 16.73 billion liras in 2012, or 258 liras per traveler. Some 5.6 percent of the annual expenditures were made on package tours.

Domestic tourists spent 3.12 billion liras in the fourth quarter of 2012, an 8.1 percent increase compared to the same period of 2011.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s overall tourism revenues were boosted to nearly $5 billion in the first quarter of the year, with a 38.6 percent increase on the previous year, according to TÜİK data published in April.