REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ISTANBUL -- Turkey's tourism, the country's major foreign currency earner, is starting to feel the pinch as Russia is moving to retaliate over Anraka's downing of a Russian warplane on Tuesday.

Turkey risks losing Russian tourists, who make up the second largest arrivals to Turkish resorts only after Germans, as concern is growing in the tourism sector with hotels and agencies starting to receive cancellations of bookings.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov advised Russians against visiting Turkey, hours after Turkish fighters shot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near the border with Syria.

Turkey and Russia are still wrangling over the circumstances under which the jet was downed, while retaliatory measures are meted out from Moscow.

Rostourism, Russia's state tourism agency, is recommending suspending sales of tour packages to Turkey.

Natali Tours, a Russian tour operator, said that it will also halt sales of tours to the southern neighbor "in the near future."

Turkey had enjoyed a boom in bookings after Russia suspended flights to Egypt following an airliner crash on Oct. 31 blamed on Islamic State (IS/ISIS).

In 2014, over 4 million Russians visited Turkey, bringing in 4 billion U.S. dollars in revenue.

Ever since the start of 2015, Turkey has saw a decline of 800,000 in the number of Russian arrivals due to a weakening ruble.

With the mishap of a downed jet befalling, tourism market representatives project a fall of more than 40 percent of Russian tourists.

Osman Ayik, head of the Turkish Hotels Federation, told Xinhua that the appeal made by Russian authorities is having an immediate impact.

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