Turkish Q1 tourism revenues drop 11.2 percent year on year

Tourism is a valuable source of foreign currency for Turkey, where tourist receipts rose 18.5 percent last year to almost $22 billion or 3 percent of gross domestic product.

First quarter revenues consisted of $1.791 billion from foreign visitors and $676 million from Turks living abroad, the Turkish Statistics Institute said.

It said per capita tourist spending stood at $678 in the first quarter.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, tourism revenues had risen 15.2 percent on the year to $4.454 billion.

Concerns about the impact of the economic crisis have been compounded by the swine flu outbreak which is seen discouraging foreign travel, although there have been no suspected cases in Turkey.