The Turkish Tourism Board in India recently announced that the number of Indian tourists travelling to Turkey has doubled. “In 2017, Turkey hosted more than 32 million international tourists while from India the number was 87,000. This year, from January to July, we recorded 25 per cent increase in the number of overall tourists. That means we will be hosting 40 million international tourists by the end of 2018. When we look at figures from India, we see 95 per cent increase for the same period. If this trend continues we will be hosting almost two lakhs Indian tourists by the year end,” Deniz ERSÖZ, Culture & Tourism Counsellor, of the Turkish Embassy said at a high tea hosted for media by Şakir Özkan Torunlar, Ambassador of Turkey to India, at his official residence in New Delhi.
Welcoming the media Torunlar said, “Turkey and India enjoy warm relations and also share a close historical relationship with strong cultural links. The relationship between Turkey and India has steadily grown year by year in both scope and depth and spans many different areas of cooperation. Turkey enjoys immense geographical, cultural & social diversity, which is why it is extremely popular with Indians. We are working towards tourism related verticals like increasing air connectivity and changes in visa policy so as to ensure better engagement between both countries.” According to the Ambassador, every single Indian who visits Turkey once becomes the ambassador of Turkey after his return back to India.
Turkey is the home of unique nature, culture and deep-rooted historical and religious prestige which reflects in its 18 world heritage sites recognized by UNESCO.