"Turkey: Tourism suffering from bird flu fears and cartoon protests
Fewer tourists are flocking to Turkey this winter season, scared off by an outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus and the violent protests by Muslims over publication in Europe of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, tourism operators and officials say.
The number of foreigners visiting Turkey in January fell 4.7 percent to 667,000, compared with January 2005, according to government figures.
Even more disappointing, reservations for the summer season are down, according to hotel representatives and travel agents interviewed at a recent tourism conference in Istanbul.
Reservations have fallen “by 25 to 30 percent compared with last season”, said Fusan Kayan, responsible for sales at the luxury hotel chain Marti, which is based in Marmaris in the west and Antalya in the south.
“The season has gotten off to a bad start,” Yusuf Istanbullu, manager of the Orient Palace in Alanya in southern Turkey, lamented, reporting a 10 percent drop in reservations."
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