An Armenian, a Russian and a Turk…
Turkey downed Russian fighter jet in November 2015, as a result of which sharpened Russia-Turkey relations. Russia, together with other steps imposed economic sanctions against Turkey and banned citizens of its country to travel to Turkey as a tourist.
And meanwhile some of our compatriots were hoping that we’re about to return our historical lands, Russia-Turkey relations entered a new phase. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, these days apologized from Russians. Yes, specialists of the Turkish language state that it wasn’t a literal apology, however, its sense didn’t change—Russians have softened.
Vladimir Putin, RF president, assigned the Government to launch negotiations with respective Turkish offices on restoration of beneficial bilateral relations in the field of trade, economy and etc. He also stated that restrictions regarding the visit of Russian tourists to Turkey will be eliminated. What importance do Russian tourists have for Turkey and what losses does Turkey suffer from those restrictions? By making use of Turkish data on culture and tourism, we introduced Russia-Turkey tourism snapshot, as well as some curious indicators linked to tourists visiting from Armenia to Turkey.
Russians in Turkey prior to Russia-Turkey conflict
Throughout recent years on average 4.1 million tourists have visited from Russia to Turkey per year. The peak was in 2014, when 4 million 479 thousand Russian tourists visited Turkey. If we suppose, that each of them spend on average USD 100, it’ll turn out that only regarding Russian tourists about USD 4 billion per year was supplemented to Turkish economy. It’s a rather serious number even for the economy of the country like Turkey, which received 35-36 thousand tourists per year.
Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism has provided statistics of tourists visiting from CIS countries since 1998. Since then flow of tourists to Turkey has constantly grown and only recorded some decrease in 2015 (Chart 1).
Russian tourists comprise 10-12% of Turkish tourism. Russia is the second main source of tourism for Turkey after Germany. Moreover, people visiting to Turkey from Russia and CIS countries aren’t simply tourists, most of them are merchants, i.e. they export Turkish production to Russia.
This means, from the perspective of economic growth Russia is of crucial importance to Turkey.
What impact did Russian sanctions have?
Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism has already summed up indices for January-May 2016. Main flow of tourists is recorded in the summer months, and indices for June aren’t provided yet. However, despite that, numbers of the first 5 months are more than impressive.
Chart 2 shows the decrease of Russian tourists, recorded throughout January-May.
In the period of January-May 2014 the number of tourists visiting from Russia to Turkey comprised 1 million 118.5 thousand. In the same period of 2015 (when Russia-Turkey relations haven’t sharpened yet) the flow decreased by 28% and comprised 801.9 thousand.
And in the period of January-May 2016 as a result of those very sanctions the number of Russia’s tourists reduced 5 times, comprising 138.2 thousand.
As a result, Russia’s specific gravity in the number of tourists visiting to Turkey from CIS countries decreased up to 8.14% (Chart 3). In 2014 it was about 36%.
If decrease of tourism continued the same way, then in 2016 the number of tourists visiting to Turkey from Russia wouldn’t exceed 650 thousand (in 2015 it comprised about 3 million 650 thousand).
This means reduction of tourist flow by 3 million people. In its turn, this means loss of about USD 3 billion (not counting trade for commercial purposes).
As it may be observed Turks weren’t ready to suffer such losses, in particular, when flow of tourists is already decreasing against the background of rise in terror threat.
And at a proper moment, ahead summer vacations, they recorded a step backward. Russian tourists won’t have any restrictions to visit Turkey. However, it’s another issue whether they’ll visit or not. Of course, some part will principally refuse to go, however, big number of tourists, comparing price-quality ratio with other variants, again will lay on sands of Antalya.
How about Armenians?
Generally how many Armenian tourists does Turkey receive? Different assessments may be found in different publications, however, Turkish statistics provides indices for almost all countries even by months (in this regard, our statistics has a lot to learn from Turks).
As we may see, flow of tourists from Armenia to Turkey has recorded constant growth with sporadic deviations (Chart 4).
In 1998 Turkey received 15984 tourists. In 2001 the number sharply decreased up to 7064 people, after which it continued to grow. Its peak was recorded in the period of 2011-2013—more than 70 thousand Armenia’s citizens have visited Turkey. In 2013 the record index was recorded—73365 people.
In 2014 the number of visitors from Armenia to Turkey reduced by 6.1%, thus comprising 67198. And in 2015 sharp decline was recorded—27.8% or 18676 (comprising 48522). It’s not excluded though, that this decrease is conditioned by the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide.
How about this year’s snapshot? Throughout January-May 2016 the number of Armenian tourists visiting Turkey comprised 12445, as compared to the number of the same period of the previous year—14270 (Chart 5).
As we may see, the flow has reduced, but not as much as in 2014/2015. In any case, if this reduction temp continues (10-12%), then pursuant the 2016 results number of tourists visiting from Armenia to Turkey won’t exceed 44 thousand.
By Babken Tunyan
