Hot air balloons boost tourism in Cappadocia

Hot air balloon tours in the sky of central Turkey's popular tourism destination Cappadocia attracts 120,000 tourists in the first half of 2017, boosting tourism revenue in the region, according to the tour operators body.

"One-hundred and twenty-thousand people have explored Cappadocia from air in the first half of this year," Yakup Dinler, head of the Cappadocia Touristic Entrepreneurs Association (KAPTİD), told Anadolu Agency.

"The contribution to the economy of these 120,000 people was 18 million euros (approximately $20.5 million)," he added.

The tourism body head expected that a total of 300,000 people would experience hot-air balloon tours by the end of this year which would see a revenue of 40 million euros ($45.6 million).

He said that following a bad year of tourism in Turkey, which was affected by several terror attacks and a deadly coup attempt in 2016, the tourism sector entered a recovery process this year.

source: Daily Sabah

10.07.2017