Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

 
2007 Annual International CHRIE Conference & Exposition 
114
continues in a country, the tourist arrivals to a destination decreases tremendously. For example, the number of 
tourists and tourism income in Turkey decreased 38.4 % and 22% respectively in 1991 (Tourism Statistics, 1999).
In addition, the Balkans war during 1991-1998 had impacted on the tourism industry in Turkey. The area 
where the war happened was geographically close to Turkey and caused continuous instability in the Balkans area. 
Another type of security related crises is the terrorist attacks against tourists. The terrorist attacks by bombing sites 
and hotels and kidnapping tourists had long been affected the Turkish tourism industry in recent years as well. 
Safety problems resulted in a drop-off in the tourism demand. Occasional terrorist attacks between 1993-1999 
caused reservation cancellations and security related instability played in the determination of the destination choice 
of tourists. For example, after September 11, 2001, not only US citizens, but also most tourists in the world had 
avoided to travel abroad near Mid-East regions to be supported by several thousand of cancellation for their vacation 
plans and business trips. Thus, the hospitality and tourism industry around these regions had suffered from millions 
of dollars in lost in revenues (Goodrich, 2002). 
In 1999, another security related crisis, the Marmara earthquakes, happened in Turkey. Both the terrorist 
attacks and the earthquakes produced a sharp downturn in tourist arrivals by 23.4% in 1999. In addition, Severe 
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) first occurred in February 2002 in China. The impact from the SARS had 
influenced on not only specifically South-East areas that SARS had occurred, but also worldwide tourism 
destinations (Pine and McKercher, 2004). 
Crises based on economic reasons are also important for the tourism industry. Asian Economic slump in 
1997 contributed badly to the Turkish tourism industry. Asian countries affected by the slump deflated their 
currencies to attract foreign direct investment and to activate their export markets. As a result, the reduced 
purchasing power of Asian currencies introduced a decline in the outbound travel of their citizens (Encarnation, 
1998).
In addition to the Asian Economic Crisis, there are several crises that are stemmed from the instability of 
Turkish economy. April 1994, November 2000 and February 2001 economic crises are among the most important. 
In April 1994, the currency in Turkey was devalued 13.6 % overnight. The inflation rate was % 149 by the end of 
1994 in Turkey (Kumcu, 2001). A financial crisis in November 2000 has had a very negative impact on Turkish 
economy prompting the Central Bank to increase the prime interest rate up to more than 40 %. Soon after the 
November 2000 crisis, a bigger crisis happened in February 2001. The Central Bank lost more than 5 billion dollars 
in just one day while trying to defend the lira, finally refused to lend any more funds to the banking sector in an 
attempt to stop them buying any more dollars. Overnight interest rates raised to an unbelievable 5000 per cent as the 
banks ran out of local currency. Moreover, a political issue between Turkey and France in 2000 was another crisis, 
adding more to affect Turkish tourism industry as well as travel agents. France's recognition of the “alleged 
genocide” of Armenian was the reason for the crisis.