Published on : Thursday, June 21, 2018
Kurtulmuş highlighted that this is an all-time record, which corresponds to an increase of about 35-36 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
Tourism has become an important sector not only for Turkey, but also for the entire world.
“It is obvious it will be one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors in the coming 10 years. The Tourism Council we organized earlier has given us a very important perspective.
Tourism is Turkey’s strategic sector,” the minister said.
Indicating that the country has gained important momentum in the tourism sector, Kurtulmuş said that with the development of the tourism sector, Turkey’s current account deficit would continue to decline.
“If we consider that the tourism sector has reached a potential of $32 billion with the figures from last year, it will be a sector with enough strength to close Turkey’s current account deficit alone as of this year,” Kurtulmuş said.
He said last year’s $26 billion tourism revenue will be raised to $32 billion this year, and stressed that they aim for 40 million tourists, expecting this number to reach 50 million tourists and $50 billion in tourism revenues in 2023.
Commenting on the first-quarter figures, Minister Kurtulmuş stated that the number of tourists coming from Russia would reach 5 million this year, while the number of German tourists is likely to be close to 4 million.