More than 100,000 properties in Turkey are now owned by foreigners, with the majority of them being British, particularly in the very popular resorts of Marmaris, Bodrum and Fethiye, according to statistics by the Turkish economics ministry.
The number has soared about 43 per cent in the past 2-years with millions more tourists discovering the country as they switched their beaches-of-choice from the more expensive Euro Zone countries like Spain, The Canary Islands and The Balearic Islands.
It is estimated that around 40-million people passed through Turkey’s main airports in the first half of this year, pointing to another record surge in tourist business for the third year in a row.
In fact the growth looks set to continue into next year. For while the Office For National Statistics reports that the number of Brits visiting Spain, formerly the most popular destination, fell by over 2-million to around 11-million and numbers going to France, Italy, Portugal and the United States all slumped, trips to Turkey all soared according to the figures.
Independent research by Co-operative Travel predicts the future lies in what they call the METT countries – Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey. Co-op spokesman Trevor Davis is quoted as saying: “Increased capacity to these destinations and the high cost of the euro have contributed to a significant rise in bookings. If these trends continue, it will be the biggest change in booking patterns since the boom of package holidays in the 1970s.”
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