‘Pakistan’s liberal visa policy to improve inbound tourism’

KARACHI: Pakistan’s liberal visa policy will attract more tourists from Turkey in the future, said Tolga Ucak, newly-appointed Turkish Consul General in Karachi, a statement said.

Speaking at the Turkish Airline Agency Award ceremony held on Thursday evening, he praised the recent decision by the government of Pakistan to introduce visa on arrival policy said that it is a good step to promote inbound tourism in Pakistan.

“Since security environment is improving in Karachi, we would like to introduce Karachi to Turkish people as a safe and interesting tourism destination and hopefully more Turkish tourists would come to Pakistan in 2018,” he added.

Pakistan and Turkey can also benefit from each other’s experiences and expertise in the aviation sector and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Turkish Airlines already enjoyed working relationship, Ucak said

He also underlined the progress that the Turkish Airlines achieved and contribution in the tourism sector in Turkey.

He praised the role of travel agencies in promoting Turkey as a preferred tourism destination for Pakistani tourists and said, according to the figures of Turkish Statistical Institute, in 2017 approximately 77,000 Pakistanis travelled to Turkey.

Ucak said that in 2000, the number of visitors to Turkey from Pakistan was just 7,908, which reached to almost 21,000 travelers in 2007, 50,000 in 2014 and ultimately 77,000 travelers in 2017.

He expressed the hope that with several attractive packages by the Turkish Airlines, the year 2018 would set a new record of Pakistani travelers to Turkey.

The consul general said UN World Tourism Organization figures for global tourism for 2017 is 1.3 billion people with an annual increase of 6.7 percent. The number of foreigners visited Turkey in 2017 was 32.5 million with an annual increase of 27.8 percent as compared to 2016, he said.

Fatih Atacan Temel, GM Karachi of Turkish Airlines, said that his airline has recorded 352 percent increase in its corporate sales from Karachi station, achieved 34.5 percent revenue increase, five percent passenger load factor increase and 13 percent business class cabin load factor increase in 2017.

Turkish Airlines has achieved an increase of 9.3 percent in the number of passengers in 2017 as compared to the previous year. Passenger occupancy rate increased 4.7 percentage points to 79.1 percent. In December 2017, the Turkish flag carrier reached its occupancy rate of 79.5 percent, the highest in history, he added.