Turkey’s tourism agencies launch early booking campaign for 2022

Turkey’s tourism agencies launched on Friday an early booking campaign “at attractive and affordable prices” for the 2022 tourism season.

The announcement came at a tourism congress organized by the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TURSAB) in Turkey’s Mediterranean Antalya province.

Firuz Baglikaya, head of TURSAB, said at the congress that the campaign would be valid for a wide range of tourism forms and not only sea-sand-sun tourism, which has been the dominant type of tourism in Turkey.

Mert Vardar, CEO of Jolly Tour, said that Turkey’s domestic market would get many benefits from the campaign, as the expectations for 2022 in terms of attracting foreign tourists are much higher than this year.

Kaan Karayal, head of Tatilsepeti.com, an online booking system, said early reservation had lost its popularity amid the pandemic for two years, but now it has become important again.

The discounted rates will end towards the beginning of the new tourism season, according to sector insiders.

The tourism season in Turkey usually starts in May and ends after the summer months.

The number of foreign visitors during the first nine months of this year is up to 86 per cent from the same period last year and hit 17.6 million in Turkey, according to the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry.

In 2019, Turkey’s tourist revenue hit a record 34.5 billion US dollars generated from the arrival of more than 45 million foreign visitors. However, tourism plummeted by more than 65 per cent in 2020 due to travel restrictions, but rebounded in 2021, with an increase in vaccination against COVID-19 around the world.