Empty hotels and beaches, desperate lack of tourists: the summer season in Turkey is about to fail due to high inflation and galloping prices. The Turks themselves now prefer to vacation in Greece, where it is significantly cheaper.
Video from Bodrum - the so-called Turkish Saint Tropez - has recently caused a real sensation in the networks, reports the German “Tageszeitung" (TAC). The reason - empty streets, almost no tourists, and at the peak of the season. “This is exactly so", Hamit Kuk from the Union of Turkish Travel Agencies confirmed to the publication.
And in Greece, on the islands just off the Turkish Aegean coast, it is the exact opposite: full streets, restaurants and hotels. Representatives of Turkey's middle and upper classes, who are otherwise regular visitors to Bodrum and other Turkish resorts in the Aegean, have preferred the Greek islands this year. Again, due to the high prices in Turkey, the country has also lost many tourists from Western Europe, TAC writes, pointing out that no one should think that Turkey is cheap - hotels and restaurants are often significantly more expensive than those in Greece, Italy or Spain.
„ For hotels in Turkey, the price increase compared to 2023 is an average of 50 percent, Hamit Cook confirms to the German publication. Here's how things look concretely: a double room for four days (excluding the weekend) in an ordinary hotel costs around 1,500 euros. In Bodrum, that's how much a single night's stay costs. As a result, hotels that should be full in July and August are only 60-70 percent occupied.
Added to the high prices this year is another circumstance that helps Turks who can afford a holiday to choose the Greek islands as an alternative to the Turkish shores. After the conciliatory meeting last December between Turkish President Erdogan and Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis, Turkish tourists can now visit ten of the Greek islands without a Schengen visa - for $60 a tourist visa valid for seven days can be obtained. It is valid for Rhodes, Kos, Chios or Lesvos, but does not give the right to visit Athens or other islands.
As TAC writes, Turkish tourists willingly take advantage of this opportunity and fill the web with copies of bills from taverns and hotels, which are quite acceptable. The Greeks, on the other hand, are satisfied with Turkish tourists, who paid twice as much as visitors arriving from Europe with package holidays.
According to the TAC, in the case from which both sides benefit, one can speak of a kind of new understanding between the two peoples. And the losers are many Turkish hoteliers and restaurateurs. They complained loudly that the bills from Greece could not be compared to their luxury hotels - this was pure Greek propaganda. And they point out that the price increase is not due to greed, as many Turks believe, but is simply the result of the overall price explosion in Turkey.
The reason for this is the persistent, extremely high inflation, exceeding 70 percent, emphasizes the TAC. And although Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek assures that the fight against inflation is on the right track and international agencies are raising Turkey's rating, ordinary consumers do not notice anything of the sort.
Also, the exchange rate between the euro and the pound no longer reflects inflation - it is the same as when inflation was only 40 percent. Therefore, a person who is paid in euros has to pay much more for his daily expenses today than he did last year. For this reason, holidays in Turkey are already expensive not only for Turks, but also for European tourists.
Some hotels are now offering big discounts, but this will not save the season, Hamit Cook tells TAC. The cancellation of tourist visas for the Greek islands, which some hoteliers insist on, would also be pointless, commented the chairman of the Union of Hoteliers, Mehmet Ishler. “We need to see what annoys our guests", he says, and Hammit Cook is adamant: “The prices must fall - otherwise we will lose next season as well".