Domestic tourism expenditures up 14 percent in 2018

Turkish domestic tourism spending increased by 14 percent year-on-year in 2018, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) Tuesday.

The trip expenditures of domestic tourists reached TL 40.3 billion last year, up from TL 35.3 billion in 2017.

The average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was around 4.90 in 2018, while one dollar traded for TL 3.64 on average in the previous year.

The number of domestic trips with one or more than one overnight rose 1.7 percent on an annual basis to 78.5 million in 2018.

Last year, domestic visitors made 633.7 million overnights.

The average number of overnights was 8.1 and the average expenditure per trip was TL 513. "Annually, while 91.3 percent of domestic tourism expenditure was individual with TL 36.8 billion, 8.7 percent of it was package tour expenditures at TL 3.5 billion," TurkStat said. Visiting relatives was the primary purpose of trips at 64 percent, followed by travel, leisure and holidays at 26.8 percent and health at 4.6 percent. Overnight stays at the houses of friends and relatives were 443.6 million, according to the report.