Turkey hopes to revive its lucrative tourism sector

Turkey hopes to revive its lucrative tourism sector, which has been devastated by coronavirus travel restrictions, with scant foreign tourists visiting in May. There was a decline of 99.3 per cent in international arrivals in May compared to the same period last year, the Tourism Ministry said on Monday. That's 29,829 visits compared to more than 4 million in May 2019. The January-May period saw a drop of 66.35 per cent, year on year. Most were in January and February before travel bans were imposed to stem the spread of the virus. Turkey has been trying to attract tourists again after it lifted domestic travel bans and eased international flight restrictions in June. While it has been negotiating with several countries, Ankara has also complained that the travel warnings put in place by some European Union nations were a political move and not based on science. More than 5 million German tourists alone visited Turkey last year, Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said recently. Turkey earned 34.5 billion dollars from tourism in 2019, when it welcomed more than 45 million visitors.