A revised Tourism Strategy 2023 aims to make tourism one of the strategically significant sectors in Turkey. The revised plan is to increase the number of visitors with high spending potential, and will focus on China, India, South Korea, and Japan, the main markets that are currently sending large volumes of tourists to the country.
Turkey wants to welcome more than 75 million foreign tourists and generate US$65 billion in revenues from tourism activity by 2023. According to the latest data from the government in Turkey, 24.7 million foreign tourists visited the country in January-July this year, a 14% increase on 2018.
Turkey received 46.1 million visitors in 2018, including 39.49 million foreigners and 6.62 million Turkish citizens from abroad. The country’s tourism revenues rose to US$14.5 billion in the first seven months of the year from US$12.8 billion in the same period of 2018.
Turkey is aiming to switch to a sustainable and income-driven model in tourism. It wants to increase the average spend of a tourist and raise the number of average nights from 9.9 to 10, to reach the average level of spending of US$86 per night, up from US$65 in 2018.
Turkey’s tourism ministry’s promotional budget increased from US$18 million in 2018 to US$72 million in 2019. The ministry aims to expand the promotional budget further to US$180 million in 2020 and to US$220 million in 2023.
The revised plan is to increase the number of visitors with high spending potential and will focus on the main markets that are currently sending large volumes of tourists to the country, namely China, India, South Korea, and Japan. Measures will be taken to attract more visitors from Far Eastern and Pacific countries via direct flights. Turkey seeks to have 4 million tourists from the Far East and Oceania region by 2023, up from this year’s projected 1 million.
Turkey will also take steps to promote its health tourism sector.
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