It is reported that Antalya, Turkey's prominent tourism destination on the Mediterranean targets to bring in a revenue of US$ 117million from sports tourism in the first three months of 2018. The city expects to host nearly 2,000 football teams from Turkey and abroad who are scheduled to spend some time in this sunny coastal town for their winter training in January and February 2017.
In fact, the city also hosts referees, young athletes and veteran football players during the same period every year which is an additional income for the region.
Tourism in Antalya suffered some major decline in previous years due to lack of tourist groups from Russia, in specific but after Turkey and Russia improved mutual relations tourism activities in the region seems to have recovered again. Indeed it is reported that the occupancy rates of the hotels and reservations for football stadiums are very pleasing.
Regarding football teams, it is reported that about 30 teams from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Iran and Arab countries, as well as Turkish clubs, have already confirmed their reservations for winter camps in holiday villages. It is quite interesting to know that almost ninety percent of the teams playing in Russia's Premier League have made reservations for their camps in Antalya.
What is good for Antalya is that this kind of tourism helps to promote Antalya as a summer tourism destination as well, contributing to its yearly revenues from this sector. Because many football fans who come to Antalya in to follow their teams and watch matches in stadiums, as well as other fans who watch referred matches on televisions book their holidays in Antalya at the same time. Obviously this turns out to be an additional source of foreign revenue for the region.
