Kaput? Turkish Tourism Faces Collapse as Russians, Germans Leave

Tuesday’s blast in Istanbul that killed ten German nationals and injured several others, all but dashing Turkey’s hopes that German tourists would make up for the massive exit of Russian travelers from the country, an Istanbul-based newspaper wrote on Friday.

“After losing hope of hosting Russian tourists Antalya expected that German vacationers would help fill the void, but this hope was dashed by the blast on Sultanahmet square,” the newspaper Dünya wrote in a commentary.

With about 16 out of every 100 foreign tourists coming to Turkey being German, this could be really bad news for Ankara. Moreover, touristic jitters could spread also to the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Britain which means that over 6 million potential tourists could reconsider their plans to visit the country, the paper warned.

Add to this the loss of an estimated 4.5 million Russian tourists Turkey had expected to host before it shot down the Russian bomber in November and the very possible drop in the number of vacationers from other CIS countries and it looks like Ankara could find itself really hard pressed to meet its budget revenue targets for 2016.

A suicide bomber affiliated with Daesh detonated a bomb in a historic district of Istanbul popular with tourists on Tuesday morning, killing at least 10 people — all of them German tourists — and wounding 15 others.