We appreciate that we´ve discussed tourism a lot over the past few weeks and months, but it´s such an important part of Turkey´s economy, that it´s difficult not to report on the news when it happens, especially when its been revealed that the target for 2023 is to reach 75m tourists bringing with them nearly 65 billion US dollars.
Turkey, ranked 6th worldwide for Tourism as it stands has already seen an increase of 14% for the first 7 months of 2019, when compared to the same 7 months in 2018, and even the recent demise of Thomas Cook, who bought 700,000 people each year into Turkey, doesn’t seem to be an issue in terms of the prediction & targets set for the years ahead.
Mehmet Ersoy who is the minister of Tourism & culture announced that he had ´no concerns regarding Thomas Cook´s bankruptcy as they were already talking with several airlines about arranging more flights to the areas affected´, and as part of this EasyJet have apparently already guaranteed an additional 350,000 holidaymakers to Turkey per year, along with Sun Express, Lufthansa, British Airways and Jet2 pledging to increase the amount of flights they schedule to Turkey´s airports.
Looking more towards sustainable growth and long term feasibility the new income and marketing strategy includes plans to increase it´s revenue, by raising the tourist expenditure and nightly price to 86 USD, up by 21 USD in 2018.
By 2023, Ersoy has plans ´to increase tourists coming from the Asia Pacific region by more than 30%, focusing more on China, India, South Korea and Japan´ as they recognise the need for more foreign Investment from some of the world´s fastest growing economies and have a significant increase in the marketing promotional budget from 18 million USD last year to 72 million USD this year.
With an increase in Tourism, comes an increase in demand, so to meet this Turkey are constantly looking to build new cultural tours, gastronomy centres, transport, infrastructure and the cruise & yacht markets part of which will include finishing two new major ports at Istanbul and Galataport, with the aim of doubling the cruise ship footfall. The additional funding will also make way for cleaner beaches & further archaeological excavations, discovering & revealing more about the history of this fabulous country.
