Roundup: Turkish tourism being hit in spat with Russia over downed jet

Turkey's tourism, the country's major foreign currency earner, is starting to feel the pinch as Russia is moving to retaliate over Anraka's downing of a Russian warplane on Tuesday.

Turkey risks losing Russian tourists, who make up the second largest arrivals to Turkish resorts only after Germans, as concern is growing in the tourism sector with hotels and agencies starting to receive cancellations of bookings.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov advised Russians against visiting Turkey, hours after Turkish fighters shot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near the border with Syria.

Turkey and Russia are still wrangling over the circumstances under which the jet was downed, while retaliatory measures are meted out from Moscow.

Rostourism, Russia's state tourism agency, is recommending suspending sales of tour packages to Turkey.

Natali Tours, a Russian tour operator, said that it will also halt sales of tours to the southern neighbor "in the near future."

Turkey had enjoyed a boom in bookings after Russia suspended flights to Egypt following an airliner crash on Oct. 31 blamed on Islamic State (IS).

In 2014, over 4 million Russians visited Turkey, bringing in 4 billion U.S. dollars in revenue.

Ever since the start of 2015, Turkey has saw a decline of 800,000 in the number of Russian arrivals due to a weakening ruble.

With the mishap of a downed jet befalling, tourism market representatives project a fall of more than 40 percent of Russian tourists.

Osman Ayik, head of the Turkish Hotels Federation, told Xinhua that the appeal made by Russian authorities is having an immediate impact.

"We started to receive cancellations for the coming period in the short run," he said.

During the New Year holidays, Russians used to bring a fresh air to Turkish tourism in the middle of the off-season. For this year, Turkey has been expecting a considerable number of Russians to fill its resort towns.

"But now this chance has already vanished," bemoaned Ayik.

The conflict with Moscow came as the market is planning next season's bookings with Russian tourism agencies.

"Russian authorities' next decisions will be decisive on the upcoming season reservations," said Ayik.

Under a worst-case scenario, the tourism sector is projected to see 6 billion dollars in loss. In 2014, Turkey's total tourism revenue was around 34 billion dollars.

"In case the tension escalates even further, we will be in serious trouble," Basaran Ulusoy, head of the Turkish Travel Agencies Union, said in a televised speech.

In the view of Vahap Polat, owner of the Mevlana tourism group in Istanbul, the tension will have a serious impact on the Turkish economy as a whole in the long run.

"Arrival of one single tourist at the airport affects 49 different sectors," he told Xinhua, saying shop owners, small and medium sized enterprises will be all affected by the crisis.

"This year on the average, we expect 50 hotels in Antalya to go bankruptcy, leading the unemployment to grow even further," he added.

Antalya on the Mediterranean coast, especially the city's resort town of Belek, is a main destination for Russian tourists.

Out of 4 million Russians who visited Turkey in 2014, 2.7 million went to Antalya, which just hosted a Group of 20 leaders' summit on Nov. 15-16.

"The tourism in Belek in 2016 is finished," said Irfan Alis, a shop owner in the resort town of Seferihisar in Izmir on the Aegean coast.

He said the ongoing tension will have an impact on European tourists as well. "European tourists, especially French tourists, are quite sensitive to these kinds of political issues," he told Xinhua.

"They simply will not come to Turkey." In his view, the business in tourism will shrink by at least 50 percent.

Despite low expectations, Turkish tourism representatives have confidence in what they called deep-rooted good relations between Turkey and Russia.

"We are considering the latest incident as an isolated one," Ayik said, voicing hope for both sides to overcome the crisis without escalating the tension further.

"This is for the benefit of all," he added.

Moscow is trying to persuade Russians to change their destination to the Russian resort of Sochi, said Ulusoy.

"But we demand our Russian friends to prefer our country, with its unique history and culture," he noted.

Some Russian tourists were happy about their stay in Turkey as well.

Two Russians told Xinhua that they love the country and will definitely come back in the future.

"We are not interested in the political events," one young woman said. "We love here, we have fun and travel."

"Turkey is the most beautiful and most lovely country and we will come back," her companion said. Endit