ISTANBUL, Jun. 29, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The Turkish tourism industry has been seriously affected by the recent tension between former allies Turkey and Israel, losing at least 400 million U.S. dollars due to reservation cancellations from Israeli tourists, a report said here on Tuesday.
English Daily News reported that some 50,000 Israelis have cancelled their reservations indefinitely. Furthermore, the Israel Travel Agents Association has announced that it cancelled 100,000 reservations out of a total of 150,000.
The report said that the cancellations have created a 400- million-dollar loss for the economy. Tour operators in Turkey said they want to recoup their losses.
The Israeli cancellations came after Israeli soldiers killed eight Turkish citizens and an American of Turkish origins on an aid ship headed toward the Gaza Strip at the end of May.
The report quoted Levent Guner, owner of Levantin Tour tourism company bringing tourists from Israel to Turkey for the past 15 years, as saying that it has posted a 3.5 million Turkish Liras ( about 2.2 million dollars) loss due to cancelled reservations.
Guner said his company had aimed to bring 17,000 tourists from Israel to Turkey this year, but the company was unfortunately only able to bring 200 tourists.
Turkey has suffered a minimum 400 million dollars loss because of this situation, Guner said. "An Israeli tourist spends 650 dollars on average. The number of tourists spending that much money is very low. Some tourism agencies have gone bankrupt due to this situation," he said.
