Turkey expects 20% increase of British tourists in 2009

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

ANKARA, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Turkey expects a 20 percent increase in the
number of British tourists in 2009 in the face of global economic crisis, the
semi-official Anatolia News Agency reported on Friday.

There is a 20 percent increase in the number of reservations made by
British tourists, Ismet Yilmaz, an undersecretary of the Tourism Ministry was
quoted as saying.

Yilmaz sounded optimistic about the tourism sector despite the ongoing
global financial crisis with estimating a fall of 20 percent in the number of
tourists to Turkey against a 60 percent decrease in the world.

"More European tourists will start to prefer Turkey, a cheaper destination
compared to its peers," said Yilmaz.

Turkey's tourism revenues, an important resource to finance the huge
current account deficit, reached 21.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2008 when 31
million tourists visited the country, according to the report.

In 2008, the number of German tourists hit 4.25 million and tourists from
Russia ranked the second with 2.8 million, while about 2.1 million British
tourists visited Turkey.