Real Severe Impact Of Terrorism On Tourism

In the troubled Middle East and North Africa regions, clear winners and losers are emerging.

Findings reveal the disastrous impact of June’s terrorist atrocity in Tunisia, where 38 people were slaughtered in the beach resort of Sousse.

The recent terrorist attack on a Russian passenger jet out of Sharm el Sheikh Airport in Egypt will further impact an already soft travel market there.

But, as always, in the stark world of travel destination choices, there are beneficiaries from other countries’ troubles – notably Morocco and Israel.

There is a complete collapse in British visitor numbers since the Sousse beach atrocity and there was already a pretty muted market this year for British holidaymakers, even before the October attack.

In contrast, travel by the British to Morocco this year has been buoyant so far.”

The number of Russian tourists visiting Israel since 2010 and up to October 2015. I think it shows why the Israelis have spotted a short-term Russian opportunity with the Egyptian resorts’ collapse and the potential problems with Turkey. Russian visitors to Israel have been sharply down this year, a situation, despite the weak Russian currency, set to change fast.

Regarding Turkey and the sudden, drastic decline in Russian visitors so critical to Turkish duty free retailers as a result of the bringing down of a Russian warplane.

The real problems there won’t start until next year’s summer season gets underway. It is such a highly seasonal market for Russians.

There is therefore a window before next summer for the Russian problem to calm down. If past atrocities are anything to go by there tends to be a three-to-five month ‘catastrophe reaction’ period and then travel bounces back again.

But of course you never know how each situation will develop.

The current and projected downturn in Turkey had to be read in the context of an already soft market. In November and December last year the Russian visitor numbers were already down -20% on the previous two-month period in 2013.

Looking at the first quarter of 2016, this is where the immediate risk lies in terms of loss of income. Again you can see that Russian numbers were already down over -27% in Q1 2015 but of course risk plummeting next Spring if the Russian government continues its advice not to go to Turkey.”

Looking at the top eight Turkish airports by Russian visitors, top-ranking Antalya Airport’s international passenger traffic is 75% charter flight-generated and the vast majority of these are from Russia.

The real risk for travel retail will be if the Russian travel ‘ban’ continues into next year.