According to TBC Capital, number of tourists went up by 4.0% YoY in February, following a strong performance in previous month (+18.9% YoY).
Number of international visitors went down slightly by 0.6% YoY over the same period. Slowdown of visitors’ growth primarily reflects decline from the neighboring countries like Russia (-25.0% YoY) and Armenia (-18.2% YoY).
At the same time, growth of visitors slowed markedly from Turkey (+3.8% YoY). Important to note that the increase of visitors remained robust from the EU (+42.1% YoY) and Israel (+39.5% YoY).
Amidst the heightened uncertainties related to the spread of coronavirus globally, the slowdown of tourism industry was expected. Current tendency hints at significant decline in coming months before recovering in summer, per our baseline scenario.
