THE number of British people visiting Turkey has dropped by 34% in the past year, reports BBC Travel.

In July, almost 278,000 people travelled there from the UK, down from 422,000 at the same time last year, figures from the Ministry for Culture and Tourism show.

“Turkey has never had any crisis like this,” says tour guide Burak Ekici. “I don’t have many [tour] groups right now, almost nothing. This is the worst season ever.”

Burak, 28, runs guided tours of his home town, Goreme in Cappadocia.

The area is famous for its “fairy chimneys”, a landscape of incredible volcanic deposits that make it look like the set of a fantasy film.

At this time of year you’d normally see hundreds of tourists in the local cafes or floating above the chimneys in hot air balloons, but Burak says the daily coach trips have fallen from around 10 per day to around one.

“Tourists have told me they were worried to come to Turkey because of all this bad propaganda, terrorist attacks,” he says.

A series of suicide bombings, and last month’s failed military coup, have increased tension in Turkey.

The Foreign Office says it’s safe to travel to most of the country, but travel figures suggest British tourists aren’t going.

Flight bookings from the UK to Turkey fell by 15% between August 2015 and July 2016 compared with the same time the year before.

Overall, there were two million fewer foreign tourists in Turkey in July 2016 than July 2015.