Turkish travel agencies and hotels are seeing a rise in weekend bookings after the government earlier this week announced steps to ease coronavirus pandemic restrictions, according to sector representatives.
On Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lifted weekend lockdowns in low- and medium-risk cities and limited lockdowns to Sundays in those deemed high-risk, under what he called a “controlled normalization.”
“Requests have already started to come in for our weekend tours,” said Tolga Gencer, a board member of the Turkish Travel Agencies Association (TÜRSAB), voicing the importance of the decisions for one of the country’s foremost industries hit hard by the outbreak.
Domestic mobility is particularly expected to gain momentum now that citizens are allowed to move freely after staying indoors for almost four months.
“There were only hotel reservations so far, but now package tours will also be made. Daily tours will also be held. There is mainly demand for cultural tours,” Gencer told Anadolu Agency (AA) Thursday.
With a population of 83 million, Turkey as of Wednesday has administered over 9.43 million vaccines in a campaign that began in mid-January. More than 7.29 million people have received the first shot and 2.1 million have already received a second dose of the vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech.
