A report published by Sabah Newspaper in Turkey, shows that the number of Iranian tourists travelling to Turkey in September 2018 has been halved respect to a year ago.
While during the political turmoil in Turkey in the past years, tourism in this country has been very much under threat, Iranian tourists became a source of income for this industry.
As the number of European visitors to Turkey dropped within this period, the number of Iranian visitors increased significantly and Iran became the third country sending tourists to Turkey.
However, devaluation of Rial and consequently increasing prices, in particular in flights, pushed Iranian tourists back. Additionally, since the beginning of the fiscal year in Iran, i.e. March 2018, the Government increased the border-crossing taxes from 750,000 rials to 2,200,000 rials. While for frequent travelers this tax has been increased to 4,400,000 rials, i.e. nearly six-times more.
During this summer Russia, Germany and Great Britain have sent the most of tourists to Turkey and Iran has dropped to the fifth place.
The report shows that although the tourism in Turkey during this summer has been up by 22% respect to year ago, but due to the devaluation of Lira, this increase has pushed the income up only by 1%.
