Turkey invests USD550 million for 167 new hotel projects
A new report published by The Hotel Association of Turkey (TÜROB) marks a rising trend in the country’s tourism sector in 2018. The report, based on Investment Incentive Certificates awarded by the Ministry of Trade, showed that applications were made for 167 new hotel projects with 28,661 bed capacity last year in Turkey.
These new investments in hotel industry will be carried out through a sum funding of TL3.05 billion (USD550 million) and are expected to provide 8,303 additional jobs in the tourism sector.
The number of new project applications for the construction and the infrastructural development of hotels and its associated businesses dropped by 13 per cent compared to 2017, when investment incentive certificates were awarded for 192 new hotel projects with 33,259 bed capacity.
However, the total investment in hospitality and hotel industry amount, TL3.3 billion in 2017, slightly increased by 0.6 per cent per project.
While the overall bed capacity dropped by more than 60 per cent in the last five years, the investment per bed capacity increased by 63 per cent with rising costs.
Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city and cultural-economic capital visited roughly by one-third of all tourists arriving in the country, ranked first in terms of new project proposals with 22 facilities (4,333 bc).
The southern province of Antalya, dubbed the Turkish tourism capital, and south-western province of Mu?la, together forming the Turkish Riviera, followed closely behind with 17 and 14 projects (4,128 and 3,413 bc) respectively.
The northern Trabzon province, a leading area with a significant number of investments in the past two years, shared third place with Mu?la with 14 projects (1,353 bc), followed by western Izmir with 8 (1,265 bc) and eastern Van with 6 applications (535).
Trabzon’s lead was also followed by other provinces in the Black Sea region, mainly popular among Arab tourists, with applications for new projects also made in Samsun (5), Rize (4), Giresun (3), Ordu (3), Artvin (2) and Amasya (1) provinces.
Three-star hotels were the leading category with 89 applications, although five-star hotels lead the bed capacity with 9,912 units. Four-star hotels, for which 38 applications were made, are projected to have a total of 8,591 bed capacity. A total of 15 boutique hotels with 1,117 bed capacity were also granted investment incentive certificates in 2018, according to the report.
