2009-10-23 18:03:02 -
Turkey Tourism Report Q4 2008 - a new market research report on companiesandmarkets.com www.companiesandmarkets.com/Summary-Market-Report/turkey-tourism ..
Tourism Overview Following an impressive recovery in foreign visitor arrivals in 2007, with growth of 17.8% year-on-year (y-o-y), the most recent data for H108 show continuing buoyant growth in arrivals of some 17% y-o-y to over 11mn visitors. However, in July, unconfirmed data suggest growth in foreign arrivals slowed somewhat. In the hospitality sector, meanwhile, there are signs of a
slowdown in the tourism sector. In Q208, the total number of tourist room nights amounted to almost 64.5mn nights, up just over 9% y-o-y (compared with almost 13% y-o-y growth in Q207). Over the same period, the number of foreign tourist room nights which accounted for some 75% of the total was up a relatively strong 7.2% y-o-y to around 48.3mn nights (after growth of nearly 17% y-o-y in Q207).
Forecast Scenario The outlook for the Turkish economy has worsened steadily through the first five months of 2008. Amid spiralling inflation, renewed monetary tightening, a weakening external climate and a spike in import values owing to energy costs, real GDP growth is now expected to fall further to 3.8% in 2008. While we have extended our downward economic growth revisions through the long term, we maintain that rising purchasing power and lower interest rates, alongside an improving external climate, should continue to accelerate economic expansion in 2009-2012. On the back of these data, we have revised up our forecast for foreign visitor arrivals this year but maintain that there will be an overall slowdown in growth in 2008 and, in particular, 2009. The background economic scenario is that we are holding to our long-term positive view on the Turkish lira which is likely to dampen growth in visitor arrivals to Turkey over the next few years with our end-2008 forecast of TRY1.1400/US$ and our long-term forecasts are TRY1.06/US$ and TRY1.36/EUR in 2012. In the short term, this is likely to be compounded by the global economic outlook, with a further slowdown in demand anticipated in key European economies, including Germany, Russia and the UK major source markets for Turkey. In the eurozone we forecast real GDP growth at 1.4% in 2009, revised down from 2.0% (with 2008s projection unchanged at 1.6%), as we believe that the knock-on from the US slowdown will become evident toward the end of 2008.
Hilton Hotels Corporation Following a similar arrangement with another local developer in 2007, Hilton Hotels Corporation (HHC) signed an agreement with a Turkish conglomerate, in June 2008, to introduce around 25 hotels (3,500 rooms) over five years. The majority of the hotels will be under the Hilton Garden Inn brand, the first of which will be opened in Kütahya (in western Turkey) in Q210.
Turkish Airlines In financial results for H108, Turkeys national airline, Turkish Airlines (THY), reported a substantial 219% y-o-y increase in net profit to US$208mn. This was despite fuel price increases, which resulted in additional costs of US$258mn (fuel costs accounted for 34% of overall operating costs, compared with 26% a year earlier). Operating revenue, meanwhile, increased by 37% y-o-y to US$2,131mn, with 76% of revenue derived from international traffic and 24% from domestic operations. Latest figures for the period January to August 2008 show passenger traffic up a healthy 15.4% y-o-y to 14.9mn.
