Events 22.05.2021   978

Influence of Covid-19 on tourism activities

The coronavirus epidemic, which began in December 2019 and soon spread worldwide and turned into a pandemic, also had a significant impact on the tourism sector.

Influence of Covid-19 on tourism activities - Although tourism is usually a stable and monotonous process in all countries, it is influenced by many different factors. Reasons and factors that affect tourist activity in a short period of time and are not repeated often;

• Short-term epidemics
• Natural disasters
• Factors such as political and economic crises.

However, such factors do not affect tourism activities on a global scale, as they are not common, and even if they do, they only affect the country and neighboring countries. An example of this pre-Covid 19 situation is SARS in the Far East, which survived in 2003, and the MERS virus, which was found in the regions of the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula. Even if these two epidemics affected many people or even resulted in death, they were not affected outside of the regions mentioned. As a result, the tourism sector is not affected by this epidemic. Therefore, the SARS and sea viruses that appeared in 2003 were not referred to as a pandemic, but only as an epidemic.

The coronavirus epidemic has been known as a "pandemic" because it emerged worldwide within a very short period of 4 months after its outbreak in December 2019. While the tourism sector is an economic and non-binding activity, it is a very fragile area of ​​activity in relation to crises occurring around the world or anywhere in the same place. However, because the tourism sector can be postponed or replaced by services, it can be easily rebuilt after economic crises, health problems and political problems. The only factor contributing to this is that governments take control of measures such as precautionary measures, restrictions, and the successful weakening of the process. At the same time, we as Tourwix Travel strive to provide the best possible service for our domestic and foreign tourists in the Covid-19 process and continue our work aimed at customer satisfaction. In this process, travel agents strive to be a good partner in solving the problems our tourists may face.

Since March 12, 2020, the date of the first coronavirus case in Turkey, measures and restrictions have been put in place in many areas to prevent the virus from spreading across the country, have a strong impact and successfully fight the virus. Today, coronavirus cases in Turkey are strictly controlled and tourist activities in Turkey have almost returned to normal. Tourists are largely exempt from Turkey's COVID-19 restrictions.

The relevant circular from the Ministry of the Interior contains the following points:

• Foreign tourists who are temporarily staying in the country as part of tourist activities are exempt from curfew on weekends.
• Anyone who has booked a hotel room can travel by private car without permission, provided that they document their place of residence.
• From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., tourists can shop freely in shopping malls.
• Restrictions do not apply to food and beverage companies at airports as long as they only serve passengers and people working in the transport sector.
• People who use the tours, package tours, accommodation or transfer services offered by travel agencies, companions of intercity vehicles for public transport, as well as people who document their trip with these vehicles for public transport by presenting their ticket, booking code and the like will fall within the scope of the exception.

Source of restriction: Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Turkey www.icisleri.gov.tr.