Bombs, failed coup hurt Turkey tourism

ISTANBUL — With summer drawing to a close, Turkey is counting the cost of a tough year that saw a string of terrorist bombings and the fallout from a diplomatic spat with Moscow that cut deep into the country’s crucial tourist trade.

The economic backdrop became more precarious after an attempted military coup that saw more than 270 people killed, the imposition of a state of emergency and the subsequent arrest and dismissal of thousands of supposed sympathizers.

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek conceded the failed coup on July 15 and its aftermath have “weakened” the economy even as he praised its resilience in the face of such adversity.

Tourism, a crucial foreign-currency earner has borne the brunt of the economic fallout.

That’s mainly due to an 89 percent drop in Russian tourist arrivals after a diplomatic fallout caused by Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane last year. Russia was Turkey’s second-largest tourist market with 4.5 million people visiting in 2014.

Turkey stands to lose between $8 and $10 billion in tourism revenue by the end of the year, according to Cetin Gurcun, secretary-general of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies.

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