Turkey's 2016 Tourism Looked Bleak

A shootout in a famous urban nightclub along with attacks in different most-frequented tourist resorts and destinations in the country had urged several Western countries to place a travel advisory for Turkey. In 2016, the country only had 31 million visitors accompanied by a 29.7 percent profit drop and economists said Turkey would need to do more to elevate its current tourism economy.

Data from the country's official statistics office Turkstat indicated the country had a record high of 42 million visitors in 2015. A report from DW Germany highlights this data as an effect of terrorism attacks blamed on jihadists in many famous foreign resorts.

Turkey's tourism decline began with a failed coup in July 2016, having foreign tourists disregard Turkey as their next destination for the latter half of the year and possibly the entire 2017. The recent nightclub shootout in Istanbul cemented further the undesirability of Turkey for foreigners due to lax security and violence.

According to Hurriyet Daily News, Turkstat found Germans as the highest population of foreign visitors into the country along with Georgia. Numbers of Russian visitors have declined throughout the year following a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Russia. Foreign travelers build about 80.6 percent of the tourism economy with a population of 19.4 percent being Turkish who live abroad.

According to DW Germany, Turkish officials believe 2017 is a better year for tourism as Russia and Turkey had stabilized their political tremors. DW Germany cites UN World Tourism Organization Secretary General Taleb Rifai believe Turkey's current state is perfect for tourism. Despite Rifai's encouragement to make tourism "the best response against terrorism," it is safety that is of huge concern for travelers.

About 40 individuals were in the Istanbul nightclub shootout, which happened despite increased security measures in the city. A city-wide crackdown is feared by travelers to close down several known tourist sites that attract great volumes of terrorist activity.