ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s tourism season is off to a difficult start and officials expect tough months ahead, as the Iran war has already prompted cancelations and a shift toward last-minute bookings as travelers weigh uncertainties.
Even as data on Thursday showed a modest 5 percent year-on-year rise to 2.46 million foreign visitors in March — the first full month of war — hotel owners and tour operators said bookings have dropped and travelers are wary.
“A difficult second quarter lies ahead, during which the negative effects of the war will be strongly felt,” Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said at a quarterly briefing.
Arrivals rose 2.2 percent to 6.84 million in the first quarter as a whole, while separate data showed tourism revenues rose 4.2 percent to $9.9 billion.
IMPLICATIONS FOR CURRENT ACCOUNT
Ersoy said a recovery hinges on a lasting ceasefire, adding that last-minute bookings are growing in prominence. In 2025, revenues increased by 6.8 percent from the previous year to a record $65.2 billion, according to official data. According to last year’s projections before the war began, the government targets $68 billion this year.
Lower revenues could add to Turkiye’s current account deficit, which is already under pressure from soaring energy prices due to war fallout.
The war, now resting on an uneasy ceasefire between the United States and Iran, has hurt demand for travel to Turkiye’s historic sites and Mediterranean beaches.
CHILL FROM REPORTS OF MISSILES TARGETING TURKEY
Switzerland-based tour operator Bentour told Reuters that bookings almost halved after reports in early March that a few Iranian missiles were downed heading toward neighboring Turkiye, where some of their remnants landed.
Chairman Kadir Ugur said however that demand started to pick up over the last week due in part to price cuts of some 20-25 percent at hotels. Bentour brought some 350,000 tourists to Turkiye last year from German-speaking European countries, but so far this year reservations are down around 5 percent, Ugur said.
Some hotel owners say war uncertainty brought a flood of cancelations that have left little visibility for the peak summer months. Some slashed prices and even sold rooms at losses.
“Bookings have now shifted to last-minute reservations,” Cetta Hotels owner Bulent Bulbuloglu said in an interview. “As demand falls, competition pressures prices. There’s no profitability. Even now, we are deliberately selling at a loss just to generate cash flow and pay staff salaries.”
