Boating off Kaş off the southern coast of Turkey. Kaş was founded by the Lycians. In the Hellenistic period and under the Roman Empire it served as the port of the neighboring city of Phellus. In 1923, because of the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey after the Greco-Turkish War, the majority of the population, which was of Greek origin, was forced to leave the town for Greece. This exchange was based upon religious identity, and involved nearly all the indigenous Orthodox Christian citizens of Turkey. The most often given figure for Ottoman Greeks killed from 1914 to 1923 ranges from 300,000-900,000. Abandoned Greek houses can still be seen. In the early 1990s tourism started booming in Kaş.
Residents of Kaş have social isolated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, 2020. Hotels have not accepted guests since the beginning of the outbreak, hopefully postponing bookings until after the disease has subsided. Only health professionals, funeral staff, food suppliers and facilities workers are allowed to enter the town. The resort village remains empty of tourists.
The Turkish lira dropped to a historic low of 7.3677 against the dollar before recovering slightly. The lira is down about 19% versus the U.S. currency since the beginning of the year. Turkey had been hoping for an influx of foreign currency through exports and tourism revenues, but the COVID-19 pandemic has sharply undermined the tourism industry and disrupted global commerce.
Turkey is seeking to re-open its tourism industry, a key contributor to economic growth, for domestic tourists in June, 2020. Foreign visitors are then due to be invited back from some countries in a stepped approach that will include testing and social distancing at hotels and on beaches. Kaş, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, is currently free of the COVID-19, but locals are afraid that visitors from virus hit cities could soon bring the disease to the area as Turkey gets set to re-open its tourism sector.