ATOR: tour operators offer non-alcoholic all-inclusive tours to Turkey

Russian tour operators are already offering tours to Turkey this year with an all-inclusive package without alcohol, reported on the website of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR).

The association drew attention to an interview with the head of the Turkish tour operator Deniz Uur, who suggested that hoteliers offer additional options to reduce prices, including the choice between all-inclusive with alcohol, and this system without alcohol or with restrictions. Turkey now has high taxes on alcohol and such an option would be in demand among tourists, he said.

“The interview of Mr. Uur from Bentour appeared for a reason, and not from scratch. The fact is that this year, even in the offers of Russian tour operators in Turkey, hotels in Antalya and the Aegean coast appeared, which offer tourists “all inclusive” without alcohol,” ATOR commented.

In early August, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, said that the republic could install record for the number of tourists from Russia in 2023

On July 31, ATOR announced that Turkey in the first half of 2023 visited more than 2.6 million Russians. According to the association, this is 3.5% less than the same period in 2019, but 79% more than the first half of 2022. At the same time, ATOR noted that growth was mainly due to short transit trips to Istanbul.

In mid-July at the Alliance of Travel Agencies reported about an increase in prices for holidays in Turkey up to 70%, and at the beginning of the same month, ATOR calculated that Turkey in the summer season of 2023 lost 35-40% of Russian tourists compared to 2019 due to high prices. The average ticket for a trip to Turkey in the summer of 2023 compared to pre-Covid 2019 increasedaccording to the association, almost doubled.