Turkey has earned a favourite spot among travellers from every corner of the globe. Prior to the instability it faced due to internal and external disturbances, Turkey welcomed more than 30 million visitors between January and September, with a rise of 6.1 per cent over the same period of 2013. As per the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Turkey was among top ten most popular holiday destination in the world with more than 35 million foreign visitors, according to 2013 data. Thereafter, the tourism sector has faced a dip due to various external and internal disturbances.
As per recent estimates submitted by President of Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TURSAB), Basaran Ulusoy, “Despite best efforts to save our flight as an industry from this turbulence, the sector shrank by 30-31 per cent in 2016. Our sector used to generate the 21 per cent of export income and now this rate has fallen to 15-16 per cent. 40 per cent of the budget deficit used to be compensated by tourism and now the rate is down to 36 per cent.”
But, then its imperative to put the past behind and look at future prospects believes Gulara Alkacir, Culture and Tourism Expert, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Turkey, who led the 20 members stall at SATTE 2017. “The wheels of Turkey’s tourism industry kept turning ever faster as data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) showed that the country’s tourism revenue in the first nine months of 2014 has reached US$ 26.6 billion, marking an all-time record for the period. Likewise, boasting world-class hospitals and experts in every area of medicine, healthcare tourism in Turkey had registered solid growth in 2014. According to data of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the number of visitors that came to the country for medical reasons has reached an all-time high of 414,600, up 55 per cent over the preceding year,” said Alkacir.
“We expect that Destination Turkey has a good future. Its true that disturbances like these have impact on conventional markets. The worst is seemingly past as decline in tourists arrival seems to have stabilised. Also, the global travel marketplace is growing rampantly and Turkey had a brilliant plan 2023 for tourism to work on. The vision 2023 is oriented towards building a happier Turkey at the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the country. Hence, we intend to start a new promotional campaign soon that will include advertising, marketing promotion training and promoting unexplored tourism potential of destinations like Antalya, Mugla, Izmir and Burso to name a few,” she added.
As per the draft predictions, there is possibility of attracting the prediction of 63 million travellers and a potential yield of US$86 million, which will amount to US$1350 average revenue per international tourist by 2023. The tourist’s and investors have a different mind-set and times when tourists are not seen in large numbers; hordes of investors may well be looking at this opportunity that allows one to be part of destination Turkey.
