How Terrorism in Istanbul Affects Turkey's Tourism Industry

Introduction: The Blue Mosque Bombing and Turkish Tourism

The terror group known as the Islamic State caused an explosion near Istanbul's historic Sultan Ahmed Cami Mosque — popularly known as the Blue Mosque — raising serious concerns about tourism in Turkey. This attack, which claimed the lives of ten tourists, followed another terror bombing in the capital Ankara on October 10, 2015, which killed over a hundred individuals. In the wake of the country's deteriorating security situation, travel specialists from Turkey began raising alarms (Parvan, 2016). Turkish tourism was poised to suffer a serious blow in light of the January 12 terror attack in Istanbul's historical center, near the famed Blue Mosque.

According to Turkish travel specialists, tourists were already uneasy about visiting Turkey given that it borders Syria and had previously been targeted by terror attacks. The events of January 12 could only aggravate those concerns (Vora, 2016). As the explosion took place in the deep center of Istanbul, and the casualties included Norwegian and German tourists, further flight bans and travel restrictions toward Turkey were widely anticipated. Major European source markets would almost certainly take preventive measures to safeguard citizens traveling to vulnerable countries like Turkey. Despite a media blackout at the scene, the Turkish tourism industry was forecast to witness a significant decline in visitors following the repeated attacks on its tourist areas. The country was already vulnerable after 103 individuals perished in the October suicide bombings targeting an activist rally in Ankara. The Kurdish "Freedom Falcons of Kurdistan" splinter group and PKK insurgents — a separatist group seeking Kurdish independence — were also under watch, having claimed responsibility for a December 23 attack on one of Istanbul's international airports (Chebib, 2016).

Repeated Terror Attacks in Istanbul

Turkey is a frequent target of bombers from Kurdish, Islamist, and leftist militant groups. In the summer of the previous year, Istanbul alone witnessed four bombings, and just before Christmas, the city's second airport was targeted by a mortar attack. That airport attack, which appeared to be directed at tourists, resulted in one casualty — an airplane cleaner — and caused serious damage to airport property (Calder, 2016). Turkey's growing geopolitical tensions and terrorism risks have wreaked havoc on its tourism industry. What was once a flourishing sector has been crushed by a series of terrorist attacks believed to be led by Kurdish militants or the Islamic State (Travel and Tour World, 2016).

Travel and Tour World (2016) reports that summer 2016 bookings for Turkey dropped by 40% compared to the prior year, while more than a hundred hotel owners across the country attempted to sell their businesses due to extremely low occupancy levels. The country's tourism sector, which constitutes 4% of its gross domestic product and provides jobs to 7% of Turkey's working population, faced particularly difficult conditions. Turkey's tourism figures had tripled between 2001 and 2014. In 2012, the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index ranked Istanbul among the five best global tourism destinations. However, geopolitical tensions between Ankara and Moscow — which arose following the G20 summit — prompted a significant number of Russian tourists to cancel their bookings. Repeated terror attacks in Istanbul compounded the problem, creating tremendous uncertainty within the global tourism market and causing Turkey to suffer disproportionately (Travel and Tour World, 2016).

Four comparable terror attacks occurred in Turkey within a span of less than ten months, all widely attributed to ISIL. The first was a June 5 attack during a pro-Kurdish HDP (People's Democratic Party) rally in Diyarbakir, just before the elections on June 7, 2015, which killed two individuals and injured more than a hundred. The second targeted young leftist-Kurdish activists who had gathered at a Suruc Cultural Center on July 20, 2015, to offer assistance to the formerly besieged city of Kobane in Syria; thirty-two individuals were killed and over a hundred injured. The third attack was undoubtedly the deadliest in modern Turkish history: during an October 10, 2015 rally led by left-wing and Kurdish political parties, civil society groups, and trade unions in Ankara, 102 people were killed and hundreds wounded. The historical context for these attacks makes clear that the perpetrators had explicit political motives — by targeting Turkey's sectarian and ethnic diversity, they were exploiting the country's political fault lines (Dalay, 2016).

By contrast, the most recent attack signaled a strategic shift toward crippling the nation's economic lifelines. Rather than striking an interior city where victims would largely be Turkish nationals, the attack occurred in the heart of Istanbul's most visited tourist district. Every victim was a tourist, with the vast majority being German citizens. As Turkey welcomes approximately 35 to 40 million foreign tourists per year — a sector generating roughly 34 billion dollars in revenue — the choice of target and location made clear that the attackers were aiming to undermine the country's tourism industry and portray Turkey as unsafe. The Paris attacks of November 2015 served as a stark reminder that terrorism aims to disrupt everyday life and the normalcy of routine. Avoiding destinations such as Paris and Istanbul out of fear would amount to handing terrorists a symbolic victory (Dalay, 2016).

Effects of the January 12, 2016 Attack in Istanbul

A suicide bombing occurred in central Istanbul's historic Sultanahmet District on January 12, 2016, killing 10 foreigners — mostly German tourists — and injuring 15 others. It was the latest in a series of attacks on Westerners by Islamic extremist groups. The blast took place just steps from the Blue Mosque and a former Byzantine-era church in the storied Sultanahmet District, marking the Islamic State's first deliberate attempt to target Turkey's tourism sector. The effect of this attack, while less deadly than the earlier 2015 attacks, was deeply far-reaching: it struck Turkey's 30-billion-dollar tourism sector, which was already suffering from an abrupt drop in Russian visitors following Turkey's decision to shoot down a Russian warplane near its Syrian border in November 2015. Turkey's geographic proximity to Syria further threatened the country's stability, as it was already managing more than two million Syrian refugees and a surge of migrants crossing its territory toward Europe. Attacking the center of Istanbul's historical district — an area teeming with international tourists but with comparatively few Turkish residents — confirmed that the Islamic State's true target was Turkey's profitable tourism economy (Guzel & Fraser, 2016).

Turkey's tourism sector, which had not yet recovered from the effects of Russian travel restrictions, now also began losing German tourists. Following the January attacks — in which no fewer than 10 Germans lost their lives — Germany's Foreign Ministry advised its citizens to temporarily avoid Turkish tourist attractions and crowded public spaces. This third terror attack within six months had a predictable and severe impact on Turkey's tourism numbers. Statistics show that Germans represented the single largest national group among visitors to Turkey, with over 4.5 million German tourists arriving in 2014 alone. A succession of such setbacks was bound to have a damaging effect on Turkey's overall economy (Turkey's Tourism Crisis May Put Economy on Brink of Collapse, 2016). Tourists from the most affluent nations — who typically spend the most money — are also the most sensitive to security threats. Security concerns exert the greatest influence on high-income travelers, who are most likely to choose alternative destinations in the face of ongoing violence (Devranoglu & Toksabay, 2016).

Conclusion

Suicide bombings in Istanbul, conflict with Russia, and economic hardship among Russian consumers are all factors contributing to the difficulties facing Turkey's tourism industry and its broader economy. Istanbul's shopkeepers — already struggling with a downturn in business — fear the situation will worsen, and understandably so. The January bombing by an Islamist suicide bomber near the Blue Mosque, which killed 10 German tourists, carries particularly serious repercussions, since Germans represent the single largest national group of visitors to Turkey. The central risk is that Germans and other affluent tourists will choose a different, safer holiday destination, while Russian tourists — the second largest group — will be unable to visit due to their country's domestic political tensions and economic crisis. Turkey's tourism industry is bracing itself for a sustained blow in the aftermath of the ISIS-orchestrated Istanbul attack.

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