15 December 2009 / TODAY’S ZAMAN WITH WIRES, İSTANBUL
A total of 11,994 passengers flew through Antalya Airport over the weekend according to the Antalya Provincial Culture and Tourism Directorate, the Anatolia news agency has reported. Furthermore, 53,114 travelers visited Antalya in the first 13 days of December, bringing the yearly total of vacationers choosing Antalya to 8,579,531 so far this year.
Compared to last year’s figures, the number of tourists visiting Antalya fell by 2 percent. In 2008, 8,874,056 tourists passed through Antalya Airport. Speaking to Anatolia, Antalya Provincial Culture and Tourism Directorate head İbrahim Acar said that despite the aftereffects of the recent economic crisis, the situation of Turkish tourism is much better than that of its rivals.“We are now trying to complete our preparations for tourism fairs. I can say that, at the end of this year’s tourism season, we finished the season with figures that were almost the same as those of last year. Following our meetings with tourism agencies, they said the numbers of early reservations at hotels are quite high. The number of tourists visiting Antalya in 2010 is expected to increase by 10 percent,” Acar noted.
