The number of Russian tourists to Turkey decreases for 56% since the beginning the year 2016

The number of Russian visitors to Turkey in the first quarter of 2016 is 66,100 Russians. A year earlier the number was 150,800 people, and in 2014 – 207,900 The number of tourists from Germany, where to Turkey comes the most tourists, for the three months of year 2016 decreased in 11.8%, amounting to 483,800 people. Just in the first quarter of this year, Turkey was visited 4,064 million tourists, which is 10.3% below the figure for January-March 2015. From EU countries the number of tourists increased only from Belgium – 1.6%, and the most notable decreases recorded from Spain by 40%. This significantly increased the number of tourists from Georgia, Ukraine, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan and Israel. In March the number of Russian tourists fell by 59% compared to the same period 2015 to 23.900 people. Total foreign tourist arrivals in March declined by 12.9%, amounting to 1,653 million travelers. The number of tourists from Germany in March has decreased on 17,2% — to 231,200 people. Most in March increased the number of tourists from Israel – on 137%, up to 19.4 million people. There is also an increased number of travelers from Argentina – by 57.6%, up to 6 thousand people. At the end of November 2015, after the incident with the downed Turkish air force Russian bombers, Russia has imposed sanctions against Turkey. In particular, the tour operators and travel agents were prohibited from selling tours in the country. In 2015, in Turkey, according to the Ministry of culture and tourism of the countries visited 3.7 million Russians, which is 19% below the previous year's level, when the Turkey was visited by 4.5 million of Russians