Turkish Lira hit all-time lows against the U.S. dollar. The lira hit a new record low of 7.36 against the dollar on August 7, before recovering to below 7.20 in the afternoon.
John Vandesquille, Travel & Tourism Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data, and analytics company, said, “The continuous drop of the Turkish currency on exchange markets, stemming from years of debt accumulation and the unwillingness of President Erdogan to increase interest rates, could actually help tourism in the region despite the uncertain times brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, with GlobalData forecasting a decrease in international arrivals of only 31.6% in 2020 compared to 2019.
“Indeed, despite having a similar number of cases to France and Italy (237,265), the number of casualties is at a similar level to Egypt and way below Spain – two of Turkey’s main competitor markets. This allowed Turkey to reopen its borders to tourists on the 1 June, which slightly attenuated the impact of the pandemic on the peak season.
“Besides giving an impression of relative safety compared to its competitors, the favorable exchange rate is likely to attract foreign tourists, and, more particularly, British ones – who represented 2.44 million visitors in Turkey in 2019 (third largest source market) and who are currently not allowed to visit some of their usual destinations such as Spain.
“A weak currency was already the reason tourism in Turkey experienced such a boost in the past few years, despite the negative impact of the multiple high-profile terrorist attacks between 2015 and 2017 on the country’s image.
