Abstract:

Tourism activities that are developing without slowing down all over the world affect the countries positively in economic terms. However, the tourism sector is highly sensitive to crises that occur due to economic, political or social reasons. The fact that the demand elasticity of the sector is high, also increases the level of being influenced by the emerging crisis environment. Since the sector operates within the scope of international mobility, it can be affected from national and international crises at different levels. This sensitivity is extremely high especially in developing countries such as Turkey. The economic, social and communal changes that started with the political tension experienced between Turkey and Russia in 2015 and then broke out with the coup attempt in 2016 have affected the domestic and foreign tourism activities. In the study, it is aimed to reveal to what extent the 2015-2016 crisis has affected the tourism sector. For this purpose, economic indicators such as tourism revenues obtained between 2000-2016 in Turkey, tourism expenditures, the share of tourism in GNP, the foreign trade deficit coverage ratio, tourism employment rates, the number of visitors to the country, average per capita expenditure, average number of overnights, and occupancy rates are explored. An attempt to determine the extent of the crisis is carried out by comparing the 2016 data, during which the most obvious effects of the crisis are experienced, with the data of previous years. As a result, the tourism data evaluated is found to be the lowest in the last 16 years and the sector has been determined to be affected seriously from the crisis.

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