ISRAEL: Israel Tells Nationals To Avoid Turkey After Istanbul Attack

With terrorist attacks hitting one after another, scaring off German and Israeli tourists, and a political grudge with Russia, Turkey’s tourism industry is in tatters, with hoteliers forced to sell their businesses.
A day after the fatal blast in Istanbul last week, Israel's Counter-Terrorism Bureau called on Israelis to avoid visiting the Turkey altogether.

“We didn’t dream of such a terrible situation. I was born and raised in Antalya, we had the Gulf War and even then our troubles weren’t this bad," 35-year-old hotelier Bora Adali, who is currently busy trying to sell his three-star hotel, told the Wall Street Journal. “We are facing a big crisis, and its scope hasn't yet been recognized.

The tourism industry accounts for as much as 11 percent of Turkey's GDP, or $170 billion. Russia represented the second largest source of tourists for Turkey after Germany. The loss of Russian tourism could cost Turkey about $7 billion a year, according to analysts.

Tensions have been running high over the past few months, with terror attacks on the rise in Turkey.

In mid-January, a suicide bomber carried out an attack in central Istanbul, killing 12 German tourists. The explosion happened on Sultanahmet Square, close to the Sultanahmet tram stop and the Dikilitas Obelisk of Theodosius, in the heart of Istanbul’s historic tourist district.

In mid-February, 28 people were killed and 61 injured in a blast in Ankara, when a car bomb, reportedly targeting military personnel, went off close to the parliament building. One more blast, caused by a suicide car bombing, hit the center of Ankara on March 13, with at least 37 people killed and 125 injured in the explosion.

A further five people were killed, and 36 others injured after a suicide bombing rocked the main shopping street in central Istanbul last week. Over a dozen of the injured were foreign citizens, including three Israelis, two Irish citizens, a German, an Icelander, an Iranian and a UAE national.

Irem Aktas, a member of Turkey's ruling AK Party, came under fire after she tweeted that she wished that the Israelis who were injured in Saturday’s terrorist attack in central Istanbul would die. Aktas was fired and her provocative tweet removed.

Aktas' comments were brought to public attention by Dr Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament (2011-2015).

Meanwhile, Ankara has kept repeating its rhetoric like a mantra, urging tourists to come to Turkey, turning a blind eye to domestic terrorism.

"Turkey is your home. You can come to this beautiful and safe country with inner peace, spend your holiday, and avail of the deep history and beautiful nature of this country. We are ready to host you again with our legendary hospitality we have shown you so far," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said last month.

Earlier this month the world's largest tour operator, TUI, and German travel association (DRV) reported a 40-percent fall in summer holiday bookings to Turkey, with customers turned off by security concerns.

With more and more tourists staying away from Turkish resorts in fear of their lives, hotel occupancy rates have reportedly tumbled by more than half. Numerous Turkish bed-and-breakfasts and boutique resorts have been put up for sale.

According to the Turkish tourism ministry report, December arrivals from Russia were down nearly 47 percent from December 2014 to 25,485.

Russia imposed economic sanctions on Turkey after an Su-24 bomber was shot down by Turkish F-16s over Syria. In November 2015, the Russian government banned all charter flights to Turkey. Russia’s travel industry watchdog Rosturism recommended that all national agencies stop selling tours to Turkey, citing security concerns. Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants were planning to take Russian tourists hostage and use them as human shields, the agency warned.

But Davutoglu said last month that the government expects Russian tourists to come despite tensions between Ankara and Moscow. He also announced an action plan to provide support for the tourism industry, including an $87-million government grant and setting up a facility to allow travel firms to restructure their debts.

RUSSIA: Russia Draws In Hordes Of Chinese With 'red tourism'

Drawn by its Communist past and a visa-free regime, mainland Chinese tourists are flocking to Russia in droves as it develops new routes touting "red tourism."

Nearly 410,000 Chinese came to Russia last year putting them on top of the list of foreign tourists, according to the federal tourism agency.

Their number has swelled 10 percent since 2013, when Germans topped the list of overseas visitors.

"We had lots of work this summer," said Viktoria Borgacheva, the head of the association of Chinese interpreters and guides in the city of Saint Petersburg, Russia's main tourist destination.

"I would say our workload has increased 30 percent since last year," Borgacheva said.

In the first half of this year alone, more than 200,000 Chinese tourists visited Russia.

Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg, the former imperial capital renowned for its world-class museums and luxurious palaces, hosted nearly 26,000 Chinese tourists in 2014.

Experts estimate that between 40,000 and 50,000 Chinese tourists could visit Saint Petersburg this year, the Russian tourism industry union said.

But Saint Petersburg's European flair and its winding canals are not the main attraction for them, according to Russian tourism officials.

Chinese tourists flock to Saint Petersburg chiefly to soak in the city's turbulent revolutionary history as the scene of three revolutions — one in 1905 and two in 1917 — that precipitated the end of the tsarist era and ushered in the Soviet Union.

"While Europeans come to Saint Petersburg above all to admire the old capital and the Hermitage (art museum), Chinese tourists want to see Leningrad and its revolutionary history," Borgacheva said, referring to Saint Petersburg's Soviet-era name.

'Red circuit'

In July Moscow and Beijing officially launched an ambitious "red circuit," a tourist route tracing the life of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in four Russian cities.

The eight-day journey starts in Moscow, where tourists can gape at hammers and sickles on Soviet-era buildings and in the sprawling metro network. The tour ends in Saint Petersburg, the scene of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.

Costing US$1,000 per person excluding flights, the "red circuit" promises to be lucrative for the dozen Russian tourist agencies participating in the programme, expected to be in full swing by next year.

Russia's new "red circuit" finds a counterpart in China, where Russian tourists can retrace the life of Mao Zedong, the first chairman of the Chinese Communist party.