Turkey’s Tourism Boom: Record Numbers and Diverse Offerings After COVID-19 Crisis

2023-09-28 19:43:09

Turkey is an essential tourist destination with its cultural heritage, its rich history, its breathtaking landscapes as well as a culinary tradition that cannot leave you indifferent. While, like many other countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on tourism, Turkey has seen record numbers over the past 8 months, showing an increase of 14% compared to last year. over the same period (2021: 14,070,771 / 2022: 29,334,820 / 2023: 33,426,940 tourists to which are added 3,327,206 citizens resident abroad).

Turkey continues to actively promote its tourism assets throughout the world. Numerous marketing campaigns are deployed to constantly attract new visitors. The country also shows a desire to diversify its offer via medical tourism, gastronomic tourism, sports tourism (notably cycle tourism) or even the promotion of new archaeological sites.

Record figures following the Covid crisis

Even the earthquakes of last February did not scare off tourists. And Turkey is doing well. For good reason, tourism is one of its main sources of income. In the first half of 2023, according to data from the Statistical Institute of Turkey (TÜİK – Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu), these revenues increased by 27% year-on-year to reach $21.7 billion.

Which countries do tourists who visit Turkey come from?

During this 8-month period, with 4,351,254 tourists, the Russian Federation ranked first (an increase of 44.84% compared to the previous year). Indeed, despite the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Turkish Airlines continues to operate numerous flights from the Russian Federation, with Russian tourists representing a significant share of Turkish revenue.

Germany ranks second with 4,082,994 tourists, an increase of 6.03%. England is in third place with 2,652,188 tourists, an increase of 12.36%. These countries are followed respectively by Bulgaria and Iran.

Note that the two main points of entry into the country are Istanbul and Antalya, which together account for 65% of total arrivals.

And Turkey does not intend to stop there. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the country plans to welcome 60 million foreign visitors and thus generate $56 billion in revenue by the end of the year (for comparison, France in the lead of the world ranking, plans to welcome 80 million tourists in 2023). It remains to be seen whether, in the long term, inflation will not undermine Turkish ambitions…

1695930904
#Turkey #welcomed #million #tourists #January #August

Leave a Replay