TURKISH hoteliers may have to gradually quit all-inclusive offers, its tourism head has suggested.

Turkish Travel Agencies Association (TÜRSAB) President Başaran Ulusoy said the all-inclusive system, which was born in line with a price-focused marketing strategy, has led to a vicious cycle in the sector.

But he said they found themselves in a hard situation: they sell services very cheap in an extremely high volume, a system that has been started since this summer to shows off its limits and the tourism field started facing many problems.

Fashionable all-inclusive services can be found in Turkey in almost all tourist complexes on the Mediterranean coast and have been a magnet for visitors from all over the world.

For now though, hoteliers are concerned about the vicious circle created by such services.

He went on: “As this system is, by its nature, attractive for cost-savvy tourists, such hotels cannot raise their prices, although their costs are increasing year by year.

“The commonness of the system in Turkey has had a diminishing factor over the sector revenue.

“What we should do is decrease the number of all-inclusive hotels in a gradual manner.

“We also need to accelerate our efforts to diversify our tourism and extend our season to 12 months, rather than just the spring and summer months,” he added.

After 15 years of continuous growth in the tourism sector, representatives of the tourism industry in Turkey are concerned about the fact that 2016 might not only be the most disastrous season of the last decade and a half, but the first to open a list of significant losses for hoteliers.

One of the ways for increasing revenue is to attract wealthier tourists into Turkey, said Ulusoy, adding that Turkey’s hotels offered services at a high quality but lower prices compared to European hotels.