10:43 30.06.2016

Turkish hotels switch to domestic market, provide discounts to Ukrainians

3 min read
Turkish hotels switch to domestic market, provide discounts to Ukrainians

Turkish hotels after losing Russian and some European tourists are switching to the domestic market and are providing discounts to Ukrainian tour operators, Director General of TUI Ukraine Taras Demura said at a meeting of the tourism press club in Kyiv.

He said that at present there are no tourists from Russia in Turkey, and the number of tourists from Europe has fallen. For example, tourist flows from Germany decreased by 40%. Turkey maintains tourist flows from Ukraine and Turkish hotels provide large discounts to tour operators.

"If earlier Turkish hoteliers were not very flexible from the point of view of pricing policy, as they had the German and Russian markets, they have now started decreasing prices and cut the cost of tours," Demura said.

"One cannot say that the Ukrainian market is very interesting for them, as Ukrainians buy cheap trips," he said.

"Often Turkish hotels accept Ukrainian tourists at low prices with the aim of not closing the hotels. This allows generating turnover to maintain them. If we speak about the economy, I think that this year would be hard for them from the economic point of view," he said.

A representative of a Turkish hotel told Interfax-Ukraine that in some hotels occupancy rates decreased by 15-20% and even 50-60% in 2016, compared to 2015. Often the hotels are closed or open only some rooms.

He said that the hotels increased discounts for tour operators. It could reach 25%.

Demura said that today the Middle Eastern markets are attractive for Turkey, in particular, Iran, and the domestic tourism.

"Turkish operators are switching to domestic tourists and provide special offers and prices. The Iranian market is very attractive, as well as Arab countries. Turkey is actively entering the Iranian market," he said.

Demura said that the situation with outbound tourism on the Ukrainian market in 2016 is not critical.

"I would not say that now the situation is bad. We do not see large problems. We would like that the price of a tour was higher on average. The low price, on one hand, generates large sales, on the other hand, it creates economic problems," he said.

Demura said that in 2016 there is demand on trips to Montenegro, Cyprus. Trips to Greece are selling poorly, while trips to Span and Albania are selling well. Turkey is at least the half of the market.

He said that this season TUI Ukraine seeks to send 55,000-60,000 tourists to Turkey.

TUI Ukraine does not sell trips to Egypt and does not service charter flights there. If the tourist safety improves, TUI Ukraine could resume flight programs to this country.

According to the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, 142,689 Ukrainians visited this country in January through April 2016, up 21% year-over-year. Tourist flow to Antalya grew by 26.5% from January to April 2016.

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