Ankara (Shabana Ayaz)_Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said 2023 marked the best performance ever in tourism.”We achieved our best ever tourism performance in 2023. The number of people visiting our country increased by 11.1% year-on-year, reaching 57.1 million, well above the year-end target (56.7 million ) is greater than
2023 was a record year for tourism in Turkey with 56.7 million tourists visiting Turkey, per capita income was $99 and total income was $54.3 billion. Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nouri Ersoy told about this with data. That “2023 was a record year in terms of tourism.
He said that Turkey’s tourism income will increase by 16.9 percent compared to last year and reach 54 billion 315 million 542 thousand dollars.
He reiterated his commitment that we will continue to meet our 2024 targets with the same growth rate.
Türkiye welcomed around 49.2 million foreign tourists in 2023, a year officials dubbed the best year ever for the industry, a critical revenue source for the country seeking to curb its chronic current account deficit.
Spearheaded by arrivals from Russia and Europe, the figure marks a new peak and is up 10.4% from 44.6 million foreigners who arrived in 2022, the Culture and Tourism Ministry data showed on Wednesday.
Combined with nearly 7.5 million Turkish citizens living abroad, the number of visitors rose to 56.7 million. Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy held a news conference to announce the data. The figure is up from 51.4 million in 2022.
Tourism income also climbed 17% year-over-year to an all-time high of $54.32 billion, according to separate data by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). The tourism industry’s previous record was $46.48 billion in 2022.
Ersoy said foreign arrivals are expected to reach 60 million in 2024 before hitting 90 million in 2028. For the income, the minister said they see it rising to $60 billion this year and $100 billion five years from now.
Revenues stood at $38.4 billion in 2019 before the pandemic, which more than halved it to just $14.8 billion in 2020 before rebounding to $30.2 billion in 2021.
“Due to its successful management of the pandemic, Türkiye experienced significant leaps in the tourism sector in 2022, making it a highly successful season,” said Ersoy.
The data showed the per capita overnight income reached $99 in 2023, higher than the government’s expectation of $95 and up from $87.50 in 2022. The figure is estimated to reach $118 in 2028.
The overall average expenditure per capita reached $952, up 11.1% from $901 in 2022, according to the TurkStat data.
“With 56.7 million visitors, $99 per capita overnight income, and a total revenue of $54.3 billion, 2023 was a record year in tourism,” said Ersoy.
“New records will be set in 2024,” he maintained.
Ersoy said they would continue concentrating more on tourists with increasing per capita overnight spending and higher non-accommodation expenditures.
“We see that the positive results of this policy and strategy are reflected in the figures,” he noted.
He further said they target to lift the per capita overnight income to $106 and aim to complete 2024 with an average stay of 9.7 nights.
In the last quarter alone, the tourism revenue increased by 6.8% to $12.27 billion, with the number of visitors at 12.4 million, up 4.1% versus the same quarter in 2022.
According to the data, the number of visitors in December increased by 3.51% to 2.48 million.
Bulgarians made up the most significant foreign visitors in December, with 251,895 arrivals. They were followed by Germans at 233,416, Russians at 229,979 and Iranians at 213,156.
In December, Istanbul saw 53% of all foreign visitors, or 1.3 million. Edirne was placed second with 14.3% or 356,255 tourists. Antalya followed with a 10.5% share or 259,568 visitors.
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