Turkey Offers Fuel Subsidies For Tourist Flights

Turkey will offer jet fuel subsidies for flights to five of its tourist hot spots as part of its efforts to safeguard tourism revenue after a suicide bombing in Istanbul last week killed 10 German tourists.

Airlines will receive USD$6,000 per flight to Antalya, Alanya, Dalaman, Bodrum and Izmir during the start of the tourism season in April and May, Turkey's tourism minister, Mahir Unal said.

Coming after anti-government protests and small-scale attacks by leftist militants, and alongside the threat of a violent spillover from an insurgency in the largely Kurdish southeast, the Istanbul bombing is seen posing perhaps the greatest threat so far to Turkey's tourism industry, which accounts for about 4.5 percent of the USD$800 billion economy.

"The only problem is with the Syrian border area," Unal said. "Istanbul is one of the safest places in the world… The tourist areas are safe… We have taken all the measures necessary," Unal told Reuters news agency.

Turkey offered similar fuel subsidies for flights from Russia last year, after a slump in the value of the rouble prompted consumers to hold off spending money on travel abroad.

Russians accounted for about 10 percent of foreign arrivals in Turkey between January and November last year making Russia the country's second-biggest source country after Germany with 5.4 million visitors or 15.5 percent of arrivals.

In addition to the new fuel subsidy, which could be extended beyond May, Turkey has tripled its security measures in tourist areas, according to Unal.