According to an article on Brinkwire, official data shows further signs of recovery for inbound tourism to Turkey for the first three quarters of this year. Russia topped the list, sending 5.1 million visitors to Turkey between January and October, followed by Germany (3.6 million) and Britain (1.9 million). This recovery could also mean greater inbound flows of medical tourists.
The article says that Turkey hosted nearly 32 million tourists during the first nine months of 2018, a 23% increase year on year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The Turkish Statistical Institute has also reported US$22.9 billion in revenue during the period, up 13.9%.
Russia topped the list by sending 5.1 million visitors to Turkey between January and October, followed by Germany (3.6 million) and Britain (1.9 million).
“We can now say that 2018 has become a year in which Turkey’s tourism sector has been fully recovered and got an important acceleration,” Firuz Baglikaya, chairman of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies, told Xinhua.
“Turkey is now closer to hosting a total of 40 million foreign tourists at the end of this year,” he said, noting the sector aims to attract more than 50 million tourists in 2019.
Turkey’s tourism industry is rebounding after suffering from a spate of terror attacks, political uncertainty and bad relations with Germany, Russia and others in the past years.
“We’re especially working hard to increase the diversity of our tourism products and spread tourism activities to 12 months of the year,” Baglikayahe said, referring to congress tourism, cruise, sports, golf and health tourism on top of the traditional sea, sand and sun.
Sector representatives are hopeful that the newly inaugurated Istanbul Airport will boost tourist arrivals.
In other recent medical tourism news about Turkey, published in the IMTJ Country Profile, TurkStat has stated that 274,062 people visited the country for medical reasons in the first half of 2018.
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