Turkey prepares to open Egypt to Russians
The Turkish media published information about the impact on the tourism industry of the imminent opening of Egyptian airports for aircraft from Russia. Journalists refer to the words of Osman Ayik, Chairman of the Federation of Hoteliers, in his opinion, Egypt and Turkey complement each other for Russia. In winter, Russians prefer to relax in the Arab Republic, and in summer - in Turkey.
In 2017, from 4.5 to 4.7 million Russians visited the resorts of Turkey. Representatives of the tourism industry believed that in 2018 the figure will reach 6 million people. Now it is becoming clear that it can be difficult to increase the number of visitors from Russia.
Neshet Kochkar, chairman of the board of directors of ANEX Tour, said that if the ban on flights to Sharm el-Sheikh for Russian airlines is lifted this spring, it will make it difficult to attract even 5 million Russians to Turkey.
According to Osman Ayik, the opening of flights to Egypt will primarily affect the flow of tourists to Turkey in October-September. However, in general, this will lead to the loss of half a million Russians.
It is possible that representatives of the tourism industry of Turkey are afraid to miss more guests from Russia, and because of this there was a desire to increase financial subsidies to Russian tour operators.
Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism Numan Kurtulmus said that the amount of subsidies will increase from $6,000 to $9,000 per plane with passengers, but the “high” subsidies will be the same – from $4,000 to $6,000.
Photo: tourdom