Turks are choosing Greece this summer – here’s why you should too
Turkey’s hoteliers and restaurateurs are feeling the heat, and it’s not just from the sizzling temperatures. A heady brew of soaring inflation, an overly optimistic hotel sector setting prices too high at the start of the season, and a surge in visitors heading instead to neighbouring Greece, have together led to a sluggish summer for tourism.
A concerned hotel and villa owner from the Turquoise Coast’s Kalkan area, who preferred not to be named, confided: “This year is certainly not a good one for Turkish tourism. High prices and inflation have badly affected bookings for a small hotel like ours, from British and European as well as Turkish tourists. This summer we’re sometimes around half full, often less.”
It’s not just small, independent hotels that have been adversely affected. Hamit Kuk of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TURSAB) told Hürriyet Daily News that “the (hotel) occupancy rate is currently 60 to 70 percent”. Back in April, however, he said more buoyantly that “early bookings signal that 2024 will be better for Turkish tourism. Some 56 million people visited Turkey last year. This year it will be around 60 million.”
If the unexpected drop in foreign visitors has alarmed the Turkish tourism sector in 2024, an even bigger shock has been the surprise defection of droves of domestic tourists to neighbouring Greek islands. Spurred by a wily move by the Greek authorities in April this year to allow Turkish visitors to obtain a seven-day visa on arrival to 10 islands anchored just off the Turkish mainland, many Turks are choosing holidays on Rhodes, Samos and Kos rather than in Bodrum, Antalya or Kaş.
And why wouldn’t they, when Turkey’s exorbitant taxes on alcohol and high inflation mean the cheapest 70cl bottle of the nation’s favourite alcoholic tipple, rakı, costs the equivalent of ￡21.80 at home, while the same-sized bottle of ouzo retails for as little as ￡8.70 in Greece?
An anxious TURSAB representative, Engin Ceylan, admitted: “Going on holiday in Turkey is more costly due to inflation while vacationing on Greek islands has become more affordable for Turkish people.” Nationalists from long-time rivals Greece and Turkey will be shocked at the mere thought of Turks quaffing ouzo on Samos, but a combination of high inflation and prices in Turkey, allied with diplomatic moves to reduce tensions between these two old foes, has made this once unlikely spectacle a reality.
A Turkish friend in the tourism business told me: “The official inflation rate is something like 70 percent, but we feel it is more like 150 per cent in the local economy”. It’s little wonder that Turks are looking to holiday in neighbouring Greece, and that restaurants as well as hotels are seeing a lack of custom.
On a recent visit to the non-touristy eastern Turkish city of Erzurum I paid the equivalent of ￡15.10 for a grilled sea bass, and ￡5.90 for a glass of the cheapest wine – hardly eye-watering prices by UK standards, but prohibitively expensive for many Turks and certainly not the good value Britons have come to expect.
The picture is far worse in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya, where a meal for four in an average meyhane (the Turkish equivalent of a taverna) cost us almost ￡180. A similar night out in a modest Greek taverna would likely have been around half that, with the price of alcoholic drinks accounting for most of the difference.
It’s not all bad news for Britons planning to visit Turkey. For a start, some hotels have slashed prices by as much as 50 per cent, even though it’s peak season, in a last-ditch attempt to lure holidaymakers. These bargains can mostly be found in larger, all-inclusive hotels.
Tui, for example, has a one-week stay in an all-inclusive hotel near Dalaman for less than ￡900 per person for the last week in August, dropping to ￡800 for early October. Furthermore, travel independently in October and simple pension rooms can be found in central Antalya for around ￡30 per night, hearty meals at more rustic restaurants for a fiver, while flights start at a fairly reasonable ￡108 return. But Turkey is nowhere near as cheap as it once was.