Domestic Tourism in Turkey!
What is Domestic Tourism?
Traveling domestically means exploring your beloved places in your own country. Internal or Domestic tourism means, for instance, a Turkish citizen from Istanbul opted to spend a couple of days at beautiful Cappadocia while remaining in their home nation. The profitable domestic tourism industry is increasing all over the world due to its rising demand. Domestic tourism is a practical choice for everybody. It has additional advantages, such as allowing citizens to learn more about their nation’s culture and history. This kind of travel is probably less troublesome for tourists because there will be no linguistic or dietary barriers when they visit a certain region of a country. Cross-border travel is substantially longer than internal travel.
In the third quarter of 2021, domestic tourism spending in Turkey increased by around 60% compared to the same period last year, even as the proportion of local tourists climbed by more than 9%. According to statistics on the family tourism sector provided by a Turkish Statistical Institute, local tourists spent around 30 billion Turkish Liras between August and September, up from 11 billion liras in the 2nd quarter of 2021, which increased by 204 percent year over year. Domestic tourist arrivals rose 6.4% to 24.1 million in the quarter from 19.8 million. Visiting family was the top reason for travel, accounting for 54.9% of all trips, followed by leisure travel at 41% and medical travel at 2.9%.
Turkey’s Domestic Tourism Is Becoming a Mass Industry
The southern and western coastal regions of Turkey have seen a significant rise in tourism over the past twenty years. Because these places were a part of the nation’s most developed areas, Turkey’s present tourism structure is reinforcing interregional imbalances. From a socio-economic point of view, tourism in Turkey has become a big demand. The domestic tourist industry has grown together, and it can provide a socio-economic alternative to the continued growth of overseas tourist numbers. Therefore, Eastern Anatolia and Southeast Anatolia, with their rich history and natural beauty, may offer new tourist destinations for domestic tourists, while contributing to the environmental sustainability of these regions.
Why Domestic Tourism Is Important
Over the previous 10 years, there has been steady rise in international tourism, especially with 1.3 billion turnovers from foreign arrivals in 2017. However, domestic tourists are still the source of a lot of money for the tourism industry. According to a recent study by the World Travel and Tourism Council, 73% of total global travel and travel spending was on domestic travel in 2017. The study stresses that the domestic traveling is a powerful component for economic growth. Despite the fact that countries frequently concentrate on promoting global travel because of its contribution to export earnings.
Because of its massive population and amazing expanding economy, China has over the past ten years become the world’s biggest domestic tourist industry. Just like China has become the most significant place for outside visitors. The United States was the worldwide leader in domestic tourism expenditure in 2009. They spend $753 billion in 2017 as opposed to Germany’s 2nd biggest market’s $297 billion. But then in 2017, China took the lead, increasing its market capitalization from $209 billion in 2009 to more than $840 billion in 2017, slightly ahead of the U.S. at $803 billion. The impact of growing Asian economies is demonstrated by India’s rise from the eighth-biggest domestic tourist market in 2008 to the fourth largest in 2017. In the standings, the Japan slipped from third to fifth.
Local Contribution to Tourism
The results show that the local contribution to tourism is close to 87% in India and 95% in Brazil. In many populous countries, Argentina, China and Germany highlight the advantages of local tourist spending over international tourist spending. Largely due to its rapid economic expansion, China has contributed 63% of the overall increase in global domestic spending over the past decade. In addition, in order to support the popularity of low-cost flights in second- and third-tier cities, the Chinese government has also invested in the construction of aviation infrastructure and train lines.
Local travel accounts for 50% of all travel spending in 22 of the 31 countries surveyed by the World Travel and Tourism Council study. Jamaica and Thailand both ranked second in the importance of international tourism, accounting for nearly 79% of total spending. Major Mediterranean countries such as Turkey and Spain are among those where foreign tourists are the source of more than half of total spending. Due to the rapid rise of middle-class households in emerging countries, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, domestic tourism has increased significantly. The broad variation in performance from nation to country reflects the different stages of development of the tourism sector. Even if there is a positive association between the increase in per capita GDP and local expenditure.
Local visitors
Local visitors are charged less for visiting nature reserves and historical places in several developing nations. In developing countries, locals are paid significantly less than foreign tourists staying in hotels during peak seasons. So, there are often legislative initiatives to encourage local tourism during non-peak seasons. The government of Hungary implemented a welfare program for travel-related services as well as benefits for domestic tourism. It promotes companies to provide workers with a range of non-wage benefits, such as vacation time and recreational opportunities.
COVID-19 Effects on Domestic Tourism
The corona virus has had a huge negative impact on the local tourism industry. Local tourism is expected to be well below levels by the end of the year. Although, the problem has been hampered by some countries’ response to a new wave of the virus. For example, the UK and Spain expect local travel to drop by 50% to 55% by 2022. What’s more, not all locations or businesses have benefited due to continued restrictions on domestic travel.
