Erkan Yagci, the President of the Turkiye Hoteliers’ Association (TUROFED) has stated that Turkey is looking for the total number of tourists visiting in 2025 to increase by at least five – ten percent over 2024.
Focus on certain markets and countries for success
According to Yagci, early bookings and focusing on certain key markets could see Turkey attract between 70 and 80 million tourists annually in the coming year. Yagci said: “What we did in the UK market was a success and the same could work for other countries.”
Yagci further explained: “Antalya attracted only 300,000 to 400,000 British tourists. Thanks to efforts of the Tourism Ministry and professionals in the industry, the number of Britons visiting Turkey first climbed to 1.5 million. Today, this figure rose to 4.5 million.”
Promotional campaigns and intelligent planning have helped Turkey draw a large number of British tourists through the years. Yagci added: “We will try the same approach in other source markets, such as the United States, Asian, and European countries.”
According to Yagci, Turkey is going to focus on the United States and China as primary tourism and visitor targets. He said: There is strong tourist flow from the United States and China to Europe. We can attract some of those American and Chinese visitors to our country.”
Record-breaking tourism arrivals in 2024
Although official data for the entire year has not been released yet, the original tourism targets set for Turkey in 2024 were stated at a total of 61 million tourists and $60 billion USD in revenue.
The latest figures from November showed that 57.4 million visitors had arrived in Turkey in the first 11 months of 2024, including 50 million foreigners and 7.4 million Turkish nationals who live abroad. This is an annual increase of 7% when compared to data from the previous year.
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