Tourism to Turkey is set to benefit from negative publicity resulting from economic problems, strikes and rioting in rival Greece.
Flight search site Skyscanner (www.Skyscanner.net) says flight searches to Turkey are 159% higher than flight searches to Greece for travel dates this summer.
Greece’s tourist industry looks likely to take a hit and rival Turkey is well placed to take Greece’s share of the market, according to the company.
Skyscanner’s February 2010 Flight Trends Report revealed that while searches for flights to Athens had seen a rise in the rankings, Turkey had three destinations within the top 50 most popular, whilst Greece only had one.
Company co-founder and market development director Barry Smith said: “Greece has had a lot of bad press recently and unfortunately it’s coming at a time when many people are booking their summer holidays.
“News of street clashes and strikes are going to hurt Greece’s tourist industry and Greece’s loss is Turkey’s gain.”
Turkey has seen positive PR this year as Istanbul is a European City of Culture 2010.
by Phil Davies
