Wednesday, 2 August 2023
New regulations on overseas spending in Turkey will impact the number of tourists coming from Turkey visiting North Cyprus, Yeniduzen reports.
Turkey’s Banking Supervision and Regulation Agency (BDK) has withdrawn credit facilities for Turkish bank customers to pay in instalments for holidays, payments to travel agencies and for accommodation when travelling abroad from Turkey.
The Cyprus Turkish Hoteliers Association (KTOB) and the Cyprus Turkish Tourism and Travel Agencies Association (KITSAB) spoke to Yeniduzen about the new decision, saying this will seriously affect the country’s tourism.
The move by the BDK was taken to try and protect the ever-devaluing Turkish Lira. However, those in the North Cyprus tourism sector say that this is a mistake and would deal a heavy blow to tourism and would affect the cost of airfares.
The head of the Hoteliers Association (KTOB) Dimağ Çağıner, the decision is intended to try and reduce the demand for foreign currency in Turkey. “It is aimed at preventing foreign currency borrowing by using credit card instalments. The BDK thinks that everything it perceives as foreign is traded in foreign currency. However, we are the only overseas country in the world that uses TL…”
Stating that the necessary approaches had been made to the Turkish Embassy regarding the decision, Çağıner said, “We urgently reported the issue to the necessary authorities. We are confident that they will make the correction decision on the issue in the coming hours“.