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How Turkey plans to lure more Arab tourists

Scrambling to stop the downturn in its vital tourism sector, Turkey plans to build special holiday villages for Arab tourists.
Tourists enjoy a beach in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, a popular destination for German tourists, in Turkey, July 25, 2016. REUTERS/Kaan Soyturk  - RTSJICZ
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Turkey has pinned its hopes on Arab tourists to make up for a serious decline in its vital tourism sector, which is struggling under a combination of blows, including the crisis with Russia, the ramifications of the civil war in neighboring Syria, a string of bomb attacks in big cities, the violent conflict in the Kurdish-majority southeast, the July 15 coup attempt and tensions with the European Union. To boost the tourist flow from Arab countries, Turkish entrepreneurs are planning to build special vacation spaces for Arabs.

According to Rifat Hisarciklioglu, the head of Turkey’s Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, economic ties between Turkey and Arab countries have grown impressively in the past 15 years, with the trade volume increasing 7.5 times to $47 billion and the number of Arab tourists growing nine times to some 3 million.

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