Russian tourism in Turkey nearly halved over jet downing

The number of Russians visiting Turkey fell by nearly a half last December year-on-year as relations soured between the two countries mainly due to the downing of a Russian warplane.

In its monthly report, the Turkish tourism ministry said last month’s arrivals from Russia were down 46.9% from December 2014 to 25,485.

Turkey’s air force downed a Russian warplane on the border with Syria on November 24, triggering the bitterest post-Cold War dispute between the two countries.

The incident prompted Russia to immediately warn its nationals against visiting Turkey and tour operators to stop selling tours to Turkey.

Turkey’s tourism ministry said arrivals from Russia for the whole of 2015 fell to 3.65 million from around 4.5 million in 2014.

In 2015, a total of 36.2 million foreigners travelled to Turkey, down 1.61% from a year earlier.

Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Minister Mahir Unal said the decline in tourist numbers was “unavoidable” as the world is facing a “terror problem.”

“We need to prevent any negative factor that damages Turkey’s safe and secure country image,” he said.

According to data from Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), the country’s tourism revenues fell 8.3 percent to $31.46 billion last year.

Visitors in December fell by 7.29 percent year-on-year to 1.46 million.

Turkey’s southeast has been volatile since a shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that had stood since 2013 collapsed following the Turkish military operation against the militant group.

Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months. The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq.

Since mid-December 2015, curfews have been imposed in the towns of Silopi and Cizre in Sirnak Province as part of the army operations against PKK militants, prompting angry reactions from the residents of the Kurdish-majority areas.

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