More than half a million Israelis just this year: that's how we came back to Turkey, and big time

With full daily flights between Turkey and Israel and a record number of Israelis commanding the Muslim state in 2019, there seems room for optimism. The end of the lost decade in which we "stopped" to relax in Turkey

More than half a million Israelis have passed through Turkey this year, some of them remaining. Hotel in Antalya (Photo: Shutterstock)

Antalya Turkey Hotel (Photo: ShutterStock)

Remember Israel's boycott of Turkey? So it is, you will forget that in the last decade Israelis have returned to Turkey and the number stands at hundreds of thousands.

Recently published in the popular Turkish newspaper Daily News Hurriyet A personal column by Dr. Güven Sak, reputed Turkish economist and director of the Turkish Economic Research Institute TEPAV. Sak expressed optimism about the future of relations between countries, leading the spearhead of the same change - is the tourism industry.

Sak opens and writes that when talking about the Israeli-Turkish connection lately, two important dates emerge. The first is January 30, 2009, when Turkish Prime Minister (and now President) Recep Tayyip Erdogan stayed at the Davos Forum in Switzerland with former Israeli President Shimon Peres. Erdogan plagiarized his views on Israeli policy, and resigned from the speakers' rage. The second date was on May 31, 2010, the day a flotilla of six Turkish ships, and first of all the Marmara, tried to break the embargo on the Gaza Strip. The vessels were stopped by the Israeli army. In this incident, nine Turkish activists were killed and two Israeli soldiers were seriously injured.

Since then, the relationship between countries has been in deep freeze. Of course, trade relations continue, people still travel back and forth between countries, but no one can predict the future of the relationship.

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The rupture of 2009. Erdogan leaves the Davos forum, with the late prize (left) left embarrassed (Photo: AP)

Erdogan furiously abandons Davos debate with Peres participation (Photo: AP)

Spirits of change

Sack further notes that 2019 brought with it hope. He cites the Heather Marker newspaper, which recently reported that in addition to Antalya's gravity, Istanbul has also become a winter vacation destination for Israelis. "One of the Israeli tourists quoted in the article said 'The Turks are kind and interested in being satisfied. This is a place where you feel safe,'" Sak says, adding that "from reading the same article I realized how much I lacked to read positive things about Turkey in the foreign press."

The data confirm that things are indeed improving. According to him, after the Davos incident in 2009, the number of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey dropped by about 45 percent, to about 300,000 a year. After the Marmara incident, in 2010, the number dropped to about 100,000 a year. Now, after "the decade is lost," the number of tourists in Turkey has reached a record, and it has crossed the threshold of 500,000 a year.

Sack's data is further strengthened. A look at the statistics of Israeli arrivals to Turkey (including connecting flights only), as published on the Turkish Ministry of Tourism website, demonstrates a real increase in recent years. For example, in November 2017, 17,967 Israelis entered Turkey, in November 2018 the number rose to 26,131 and in November 2019, the number rose to 35,430 (a 35 percent increase over the previous year).
Of course, it should be understood that much of the numbers are due to the fact that many Israelis visit Turkey for just a few hours, as a connection between flights, as they make their way to other destinations in the world. However, there is no doubt that the trend is indeed positive.

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Istanbul has become a destination for winter holidays for us. Blue mosque in town (Photo: Shutterstock)

Istanbul Blue Mosque (Photo: ShutterStock)

560,000 Israelis in Turkey in 2019

In a story posted a week ago on the US news site MagViral, about 75 percent of Israelis flying from Tel Aviv to Istanbul with Turkish Airlines are pursuing other destinations around the world. The rest remain on vacation in the state. It should be noted that these are flights only landing in Istanbul and not direct flights to Antalya, intended for vacation and not as a connection on the way to another destination.

Israelis are now flocking to Turkey again, not least due to low prices and luxurious hotels. Official numbers have not yet been released, but according to estimates, in 2019, 560,000 Israelis have visited Turkey (a 26 percent increase over 2018). This number breaks the previous record of 2008, when 528,000 Israelis visited Turkey.

Just to put an ear to it, in 2019 (January-November) Turkey was visited by about 43 million tourists from around the world. This is a 14.3 percent increase over 2018, so it is evident that the Turkish tourism sector is in full bloom.

And who are the Israelis who come to Turkey today? An Israeli study published a year ago examined the changes in the nature of tourism between Israel and Turkey in recent years. Dr. Galia Lindenstrauss, a senior research associate at the National Security Research Institute and specializing in Turkey's current foreign policy, said she was one of Israel's favorite destinations in the 1990s and early 2000s. A problematic relationship with Muslim countries, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Israelis were killed in Turkey, was noteworthy, "the study said, which also points out the broken point in 2009. It was also noted that while the number of Jewish tourists from Israel declined, the number of Arab-Israeli tourists went down And went up.

In 2019, more than 40 million tourists were visited by Turkey. Istanbul's new airport (Photo: Eddie Gerald)

Istanbul's new airport (Photo: Eddie Gerald, official website)

"Without the whims of leaders"

According to Sak, the overall trade volume between Israel and Turkey was not directly affected by the political climate. In 2008, the trade volume was around $ 3.4 billion. Now it has grown by about 60 percent to reach $ 5.6 billion.

What is the reason for this? "Unlike most countries in our region, both Israel and Turkey are free and open markets, with laws and regulations-based trade mechanisms. Thus, Turkey's political relations with Russia or Iran may affect its trade with these countries, but not Turkish-Israeli trade relations. These relations do not depend on the whims of the country's leaders. "

All this does not mean that economic relations have not been affected. In the past, Israeli investments in Turkey were fixed: $ 112 million in 2006, $ 98 million in 2007, and $ 100 million in 2008. This figure has dropped dramatically by 2010, and has remained so throughout the decade. "Turkey has been a target that you can trade with, but you didn't want to spend your money there for a long time and build long-term relationships," Sack writes.

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"Turkish-Israeli trade relations do not depend on the whims of the country's leaders." Erdogan (Photo: Reuters)

Recep Tayyip Erdogan briefs lawmakers on his party in Ankara, November 26, 2019 (Photo: Reuters)

Security is back on the Israeli side

When Sak calls 2019-2009 "the lost decade," he means the loss of mutual trust between the two countries. "And for this reason, it is gratifying to see Israeli tourists visiting Turkey again. This means that security is back on the Israeli side. Now is the time for Israeli investors to start considering investment in Turkey again."

He said Turkey could benefit significantly from this. "Imagine how things are today in the eastern part of the Middle East, if we had not experienced that lost decade. Anyone thinking about Turkish strategy in rational terms always comes to the same conclusion: deals with economic and security forces in the region must be closed."

He also notes that Turkish industry needs a technological leap, and the debate on the issue often feels imprisoned between the European and Asian options. "However, we have an extensive option here in our region that includes financial and technological investments. Indeed, there are unstoppable political issues, but if our diplomats and politicians do their job, the benefits will be significant. Look at the number of flights between Istanbul and Tel Aviv. From 12 daily flights, and note: they are rarely sparse. "