A prolonged tourism season this year has given a boost to employment in the industry in the southern province of Antalya, which has been recovering fast from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the first 10 months of 2022, 12.7 million foreign tourists arrived in the city on the Mediterranean coast by air, which marked a strong 48 percent increase from the same period of 2021. In September alone, the popular holiday destination welcomed 1.7 million tourists.
As a result of the rebound in tourism activity, the number of people employed in the local tourism industry in July, which is the peak month for tourist visits, rose from 258,338 last year to more than 291,372 this year.
This figure, provided by the local Social Security Institution (SGK) includes the people employed by the travel agencies, tour operators and food services companies in Antalya and marked an all-time-high July figure.
In July 2017, the local tourism industry employed 209,000 people and in the same month in 2019, when Turkey welcomed a record number of foreign visitors, the corresponding figure was 271,000. But as the pandemic started to take its toll on the global travel and tourism industries, companies in Antalya had to reduce their staff to 154,000 in 2020.
hurriyetdailynews.com