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Turkish beach resorts in popular destinations such as Antalya and Bodrum are cutting hotel prices during the peak summer season as the Middle East conflict weighs on travel demand and tourists increasingly delay bookings until the last minute, according to a report.
Advertised accommodation prices for August through October in Antalya are down 5% from the same period last year, while rates in Mugla province, which includes the popular coastal destinations of Bodrum, Marmaris and Dalaman, have fallen 8%, according to Lighthouse data compiled by FT.
The discounts are largely concentrated in Türkiye’s coastal holiday markets, while accommodation prices in Istanbul, by contrast, are up 5% year over year.
Other popular destinations across the region, including the Greek islands and seaside destinations in Italy, Spain and Croatia, are generally holding or raising prices, while Egypt has cut rates by 10% following a year of record growth.
The report attributed the weaker demand to the Iran conflict, which has prompted some travelers to delay holiday bookings, leaving airlines, tour operators and hotels with less visibility over peak-season revenue.
In its second-quarter update, Lighthouse found that Istanbul and Antalya were strengthening while Bodrum remained under pressure. Istanbul’s advertised rates for May and June were up 7.6% to 9.4% year over year, while Antalya’s June rates rose 10.9% after a 2% decline in April.
Bodrum, meanwhile, remained below 2025 levels despite operators raising advertised rates sharply between February and March.
The wider regional data also showed that roughly half of the destinations tracked by Lighthouse raised their advertised Q2 rates between February and March, while the rest cut them, compared with nearly two-thirds that were raising prices a year earlier.
Türkiye’s tourism industry is also facing higher costs in euro and dollar terms as high inflation and the Turkish lira’s real appreciation make the country more expensive for foreign visitors.
Annual inflation stood at around 31.8% in July, while the U.S. dollar had gained just 17.5% against the Turkish lira and the euro 16.6%.
Meanwhile, the central bank’s real effective exchange rate, which measures the Turkish lira’s inflation-adjusted value against the currencies of Türkiye’s major trading partners, stood at 106 in July, its highest level since March 2020.
Some expenses, including meals, are now often higher than at comparable European destinations such as Greece, while squeezed profit margins are making it harder for smaller operators to absorb rising costs.
Independent and family-run hotels have also complained that larger competitors are aggressively cutting rates to keep their rooms occupied, putting further pressure on prices across the market, the report suggested.
A finance manager at a boutique hotel in Bodrum told the newspaper that some all-inclusive hotels were offering exceptionally low discounts, arguing that the price cuts were putting smaller properties under additional pressure.
Türkiye’s visitor numbers fell 5.1% year over year to 15.6 million in the second quarter, while tourism revenue dropped 2.6% to $15.9 billion, according to official data. In the first half, visitor numbers declined 2.7% to 24.8 million and tourism revenue edged down 0.1% to $25.8 billion, helped by a stronger first quarter.
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