Criticism of high costs from Er Yatırım

Er Yatırım General Manager Ferzan Çelikkanat was a guest on Bloomberg HT's program "Üst Düzey." Evaluating the tourism sector, Çelikkanat noted that they didn't achieve what they had hoped for due to rising costs, stating, "The year 2023 was somewhat disappointing for us. However, we experienced a period where revenues and profits were in parallel. The stabilization of inflation and exchange rates, along with the slowing of demand due to rising costs, started to cause some deviations in our budgets from the beginning of 2024."

Since Turkey's main income comes from travel, particularly along the Mediterranean coast and through hotel and tourism services in the Mediterranean basin, Çelikkanat expressed hope that a significant portion of their revenue would be collected in the summer of 2024. He noted, "In the first and second quarters of 2024, tourism activities were more focused on urban activities, and there was significant revenue and turnover generated in cultural tourism and the growing health tourism sector. Particularly with the advance agreements made by agencies and tour operators for the summer season, there were serious hopes for the summer of 2024. In fact, our targets shifted from $50 billion to $60 billion in tourism revenue. However, things didn’t go as planned. Due to challenges with rising costs, we did not experience the expected June-July period. We can see this reflected in the latest figures. In fact, we see that summer tourism has only started to recover as of August, and the season has extended into September-October as part of the summer season due to shifting trends. There were the Olympics and the European Championship, so we can say that domestic tourists postponed their vacations and spending to September-October."

Regarding urban tourism, Çelikkanat noted that they had recorded a good season, stating, "If a proper investment model and financing cost planning were in place, urban hotels always operate with different dynamics than holiday hotels and can generate profits. In fact, the hotel industry is one where profits are made not just by revenues but by controlling expenses. We had a good season in urban hotel operations."