The dark clouds on Turkish tourism have been clearing away with a number of favorable steps taken recently. New routes have begun to emerge following the positive estimates for 2018. In this regard, direct flights have been scheduled from Northern Ireland's capital Belfast to Antalya and Dalaman for the season, according to a report in Turkish newspaper Habertürk.

British tour companies Jet2.com and Jet2 Holidays have announced recently that they will double their capacity for next year depending on the increase in demand for Turkey. Carrying tourists to Turkey from nine different regions of the U.K., the Jet2 group have recently announced that it will put 70,000 additional seats on its flights and increase its total capacity to 140,000 in 2018.

Jet2 Holidays has now decided to add direct flights from Ireland to Turkey. Accordingly, direct flights from Belfast Airport to Dalaman will begin in the 2018 summer season, the report said.

The company will fly once a week in the June to July period of 2018. Jet2 Holidays previously announced that it included Belfast to Antalya flights in its 2018 summer season plans. Thus, the number of flights from Belfast to Turkey will increase to two destinations. This means the number of destinations the company will fly directly from Belfast will rise to 23.

Jet2.com and Jet2 Holiday CEO Steve Heapy said in a previous statement that they experienced a significant increase in bookings for Turkey. "For this reason, we are pleased to increase the number of our Turkey programs. With this program, we hope to achieve a great success story with Turkey," he added.

In the January-September period of 2017, Russia led the way with 4.1 million in the number of tourists, followed by Germany with 2.9 million and Iran with 1.9 million. Georgia and the U.K., on the other hand, ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.