Turkey's tourism sector ready for Russian tourists amid pandemic concerns

2021-06-21 11:05:59 GMT2021-06-21 19:05:59(Beijing Time) Xinhua English

ISTANBUL, June 21 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish tourism industry is ready for the arrival of Russian tourists after Moscow announced that the flights between the two countries would resume on June 22, but the COVID-19 pandemic raises concerns.

Sector insiders said the return of Russian travellers would be a relief for the economy, but as the pandemic is not over yet, the coronavirus-related rules should be strictly implemented.

"We are happy in terms of the economy, but we need to take our measures for health," Ertan Ustaoglu, president of the Turkish Small Hotels Association, was quoted as saying by local media.

Sururi Corabatir, head of the Turkish Hoteliers Federation, said the industry is fully implementing the Safe Tourism Certificate program and confident in itself.

"We will continue on our way without complacency ... without compromising the measures," Corabatir told reporters, noting the Turkish sector has been eagerly awaiting this decision for months.

Nalan Yesilyurt, a board member of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies, told Xinhua that the Russian market is significantly important for Turkey's coastal regions, especially for the Mediterranean province of Antalya which Russian tourists visit the most.

"However, the news saying that COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Russia is alarming for the health," she said.

According to the Turkish Civil Aviation General Directorate, it will be mandatory for Russian tourists to submit a document issued by the official authorities showing that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19 at least 14 days before entering Turkey or they had the disease in the past six months. Otherwise, a negative PCR test report will be required.

The Turkish government earlier announced that the tourism employees would get their COVID-19 inoculation done before the tourism season in June.

Turkey started its mass vaccination campaign in January, and the total number of vaccines administered has approached 42 million by Monday.

Serdar Karcilioglu, head of the Bodrum Professional Hotel Managers Association, took a distant attitude toward the arrival of Russian tourists in terms of the volume of their contribution to the economy.

He said 90 percent of Russians have already made their holiday reservations and preferred Europe.

"Turkey expects to lure only 1.5 million tourists at most, a significantly low figure for the industry," Karcilioglu was quoted as saying by the Cumhuriyet daily.

After receiving 45 million tourists in 2019 and generating a total of 34.5 billion dollars in revenue, Turkey suffered losses of over 70 percent in 2020 because of the pandemic.

Russia had extended its flight ban on Turkey until June 21 because of the increasing COVID-19 daily cases in the country. Enditem

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