Assessing the short-term impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on foreign visitor’s demand for Turkey: A scenario analysis

Since it first started in China, COVID-19 outbreak has become the number one problem of the World. World Health Organization accepted COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. In light of the latest information, it could be said that the world has never encountered such a pandemic in the last century. Tourism is one of the most sensitive sectors to crises such as wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and other kinds of unexpected phenomena. This study aims to forecast the short-term effects of COVID-19 pandemic on foreign visitors' demand for Turkey by using scenario analysis technique. According to the results, a decline in foreign visitors’ arrivals in the range of 5% to 53% is estimated. It means a loss of tourism revenues about $15.2 billion as the worst, and $1.5 billion as the best alternative scenario for 2020. It is essential to develop recovery plans and to implement them urgently, to minimize the harms of the COVID-19 pandemic on Turkish tourism.