US loses Turkish tourists to Latin America amid shutdown

Turkish interest in US tours decreased after the US government shutdown amid worries that processing times for long term visas for Turks would increase at the US consulates.  Board chairman of the Turkish Ani Tour company, Veli Cilsal, said tourists were disappointed when the sites such as the Statue of Liberty, parks and museums closed after Democrats and Republicans disagreed on the US budget at the beginning of the week. Expressing that recent tours to the US had experienced no problems, Cilsal noted Latin American countries such as Brazil and Argentina, as well as Asian ones such as Japan and Thailand, were becoming more popular.  Cilsal stressed they had decided as foresight not to organize US tours until April 23, 2014 and increase the Latin American tours.  Ali Onaran, board chairman of Turkish Pronto Tour, said their tours to the US would not be cancelled. Noting that the closure of the Statue of Liberty and Grand Canyon was a problem, Onaran said they are organizing tours to the Red Canyon as an alternative.  "There are no security or health problems. We did not receive any news on any slowdown in passport control while entering the country, but we were informed that some visitors changed their tours to South America in the last minute," Onaran added.

The US government began a partial shutdown on Tuesday as the House and the Senate couldn't agree on an emergency spending bill to fund the government.

The House and Senate have blamed each other for more than a week over Obamacare, the president's signature health care law. 

Lawmakers failed to compromise on the bill before a midnight deadline as Republicans insisted on delaying Obama's health care reforms as a condition for passing the budget.

More than 700,000 US government workers face unpaid leave with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock is over.