Domestic tourists’ travel expenditures from last year have increased by 80.2% compared to the previous year to reach TL 58.1 billion ($3.9 billion), according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) Friday.
Some 8.9 million citizens residing in the country traveled in the last quarter of 2021, according to TurkStat’s "household domestic tourism" data for the fourth quarter of 2021.
The total number of trips made by travelers with one or more overnight stays within the country increased by 48.9% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, around 10.7 million, the data showed.
Travelers in the quarter made 80.3 million overnight stays. The average number of overnight stays was recorded as 7.5 nights.
On annual basis, the total number of trips in 2021 increased by 23.2% compared to the previous year and reached 52.7 million. The total number of overnight stays made by travelers last year, meanwhile decreased by 2.2% compared to 2020 to a total of 458.8 million.
The average number of overnight stays was 8.7 in 2021.
In the last quarter of 2021, domestic tourists' travel expenditures increased by 98.7% compared to the same quarter of 2020 and amounted to TL 11.4 billion.
Some 93.4% of these expenditures were personal travel expenditures with TL 10.7 billion while 6.6% of them were package tour expenses with TL 753.5 million. The average expenditure per trip was TL 1,074.
Lagging behind 2019
Although travel expenditures have left the pre-pandemic year of 2019 with a rise of 18.8%, the number of trips remained behind the pre-pandemic year with a 32.5% decrease. The number of trips, which was 78.2 million in 2019 decreased to 52.7 million.
The number of overnight stays, which was 637.7 million in 2019, increased to 458.87 million in 2021. The number of overnight stays decreased by 28% compared to the pre-pandemic period.
Due to the high increase in travel, accommodation and food prices, travel expenditures caught the pre-pandemic period, while the curfews and various travel restrictions implemented in the first half of 2021 prevented the pre-pandemic period in the number of travels.
Food and beverage expenses top the list
In the October-December period of last year, food and beverage expenditures had the highest share in total expenses with 32.6%. Transportation costs followed it with 31.5% share and accommodation expenditures with 10.4%.
The food and beverage expenditures jumped by 82.8% when compared to the 2020 figures; transportation expenditures by 90.6% and accommodation expenditures by 146.8%.
Visiting relatives comes first
In the last quarter of last year, trips to visit relatives ranked first among the motives of the domestic travel with 61.6%. This was followed by "travel, entertainment, vacation" purposes with 23.6% and "health purposes" with 7%.
When the purpose of travel is evaluated on an annual basis, "visiting relatives" ranks first with 58.8%, "travel, entertainment, vacation" comes second with 30.2% and "health" travels take third place with 5%.
Meanwhile, the data showed that those who traveled in the October-December period of 2021 stayed mostly at "friends or relatives' houses," with 51.6 million overnight stays.
According to accommodation types, "own house" ranked second with 17.5 million overnight stays, and "hotels" ranked third with 5.2 million overnight stays.
On an annual basis, those who traveled last year preferred to stay at "friends or relatives' houses," with 305.5 million overnight stays. While "own house" took the second place with 84.8 million overnight stays, "hotel" again took the third place with 34.2 million overnight stays.