Over 900 Turkish Aegean Resorts on Sale Amid Russia Strains, Terror

MOSCOW/ANKARA (Sputnik) – Over 900 Aegean Sea resorts in Turkey have been put on sale valued at an equivalent of $3 billion after tensions with Russia escalated and the country’s stability was shaken last year, a Turkish opposition lawmaker said Thursday.

Reports of Turkey’s tourism industry "imploding" appeared earlier this month, with the Zaman newspaper counting some 1,300 hotels put up for sale across the country, 400 of them in Antalya.

"The government has buried its head in the sand, ignoring the decline in tourism," Republican People’s Party (CHP) Ankara lawmaker Akin Ustundag said in remarks published on the CHP website, citing a total of 908 resorts on sale on the Aegean coast.

The 35-percent decline in Turkey’s tourism industry is coupled with a fivefold drop in the number of Russian tourists visiting Antalya alone in comparison to last year, according to the Antalyan tourism department.

Tourism in Turkey has suffered as the security situation declined amid Islamic State jihadist group and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) separatist violence dating back to last summer.

Tourism continued declining after Russia banned organized travel of its tourist groups to the republic in the wake of the November 24 downing of a Russian Su-24 attack aircraft by turkey over alleged airspace violation.