The Chairman of the Turkish Movement for Visa-Free Europe Mehmet Okumuş said yesterday that the vacuum created by the absence of Russian tourists in Turkey can be filled by European tourists through visa liberalisation with EU states.
Okumuş explained that European tourists could in fact help Turkey increase its tourism revenue by $15 billion to $20 billion per year.
“Through the right marketing tools, we can see a significant increase in tourist numbers in Turkey from EU countries. The gap created by Russian tourists will be filled by European tourists,” Okumuş said.
“Turkish people have been suffering a great amount from illegal and unacceptable EU visa requirements economically and socially for about 35 years,” he added.
According to the Turkish Tourism Ministry, as many as 3.54 million Russian tourists visited Turkey in 2015.
Russia’s tourism agency Rostourism said on 26 November that cooperation between Russia and Turkey in the tourism sector would “obviously” be halted following the incident in which a Russian warplane was downed by Turkey after it violated Turkish airspace.
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