DUBAI: Holidaymakers are cancelling bookings to Turkey following Friday’s failed military coup to overthrow the government that left some 290 dead and 1,400 injured.

The failed coup is likely to increase concerns about security in Turkey, where the tourism industry is already reeling after a spate of terror attacks in the past year.

“There are a decent set of cancellations,” general manager of Dubai-based travel agency Micky Bhatia told Gulf News by phone on Sunday. “There are [also] quite a lot of queries coming in concerned about security.”

Booking cancellations increased after the June 28 Daesh suicide bombings at Turkey’s busiest airport, Istanbul Ataturk, that killed 41 and injured 230, Gulf News reported on June 29.

That attack, a week before the Eid-Al-Fitr holiday, put further strain on the country’s tourism industry that accounts for 6.2 percent of Turkey’s economic output, according to the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies, and 8 percent of employment.

“Tourism is already having an awful year,” Michael Harris, the head of research at Renaissance Capital in London, told Gulf News by phone on Sunday.

The coup forced airlines to cancel flights to Turkey over the weekeb but by Sunday Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways, the Gulf’s largest airlines, had largely resuming operations.

“Tourism has already been badly dented in Turkey prior to the attempted coup due to security fears,” John Strickland, aviation expert and director of UK-based JLS Consulting, told Gulf News by email on Sunday. “As we have seen in other markets this will lead to airlines switching capacity to other country’s to avoid losses resulting from reducing demand.”

The number of visitors to the country fell by 35 per cent in May, its largest monthly drop in 22 years, according to government data. Visitor numbers have rapidly declined because of a series of bombings attributed to Daesh and Kurdish militants and due to a ban Russia placed on charter flights after Turkey shot down one of its fighter jets on the Syrian border in November 2015.

Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted that ban on June 29, and though Russians were the second largest group of foreign visitors to Turkey after Germany before the ban, it is unlikely to be enough.

“The numbers are only going to get worse for the remainder of the year,” Jean-Paul Pigat, a senior economist at Dubai’s biggest lender Emirates NBD, told Gulf News by email on Sunday. “There had been some hope that Russia’s decision to end its travel ban would provide some help to the industry at the margin, but given the deterioration in the political and security environment in the past several weeks, this appears unlikely.”

Turkey had embarked on substantial international marketing campaigns to boost in-bound tourism, including a major sponsorship deal of the Euro 2016 football tournament in France that ended on June 10.

Few think those campaigns will have any major impact. Turkey is about halfway through its peak holiday season that traditionally see an influx of travellers, particularly last minute bookings from Europe and the Gulf.

“We expect that this political issue, internal uncertainty, will again impact negatively on tourism,” Euromonitor International research analyst Diana Jarmalaite told Gulf News by phone on Sunday.

Friday’s coup attempt and last month’s attack on Istanbul Ataturk is seen to have a continued effect on Turkey’s tourism industry for the rest of year. Turkey arrested nearly 3,000 soldiers and fired more than 2,700 judges that it alleges are connected to the failed coup attempt, the country’s Anadolu news agency reported on Saturday.

That is going to weaken the Turkey’s security capabilities, Ali Sökmen, associate analyst at Control Risks in London, told Gulf News by phone on Sunday.

“The people who were removed from their post will not be easily replaced,” he said.