Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, who met with members of the press at Atatürk Cultural Centre and announced the tourism data for 2023, said that Turkey's tourism revenues in 2023 will be 54 billion 315 million 542 thousand dollars with an increase of 16.9 percent compared to the previous year.
Minister Ersoy stated that even though the disaster of the century centred in Kahramanmaraş as of February and the stressful election process afterwards and the effects of the Israeli-Palestinian war in the Middle East as of October in the last quarter, the data for 2023 has been realised as a record-breaking year again:
''Overnight expenditure per capita is very important. This is what we have been emphasising since 2018. We need to be indexed to per capita overnight income. Turkey changed its strategy in 2018. Now, quantity as well as quantity will be a priority for us. In 2017, it was realised at 65 dollars, and we see that this figure increased to 89 dollars in 2022 and 99 dollars last year. Compared to 2017-2023, Turkey showed a performance of 53 per cent in dollar terms. When we compare it with last year, we see that we have achieved an increase of 12 per cent. When we look at total revenues, Turkey, which carried out a very successful process in the pandemic last year, had achieved a record revenue of $ 46.5 billion. When we look at the number of visitors, we came out as the 4th in the ranking, which was the 6th before the pandemic. In 2023, that is, last year, we achieved a new record by achieving $ 54.3 billion in tourism revenue in Turkey. We have now achieved last year's performance with an increase of 17 percent.''
Speaking about the 2024 targets, Minister Ersoy continued as follows:
''Turkey, which carried out a very successful process in the pandemic last year, had achieved a record revenue of 46.5 billion dollars. And even in terms of the number of visitors, we increased our ranking from 6th before the pandemic to 4th. In the MTP, a revenue of 59.6 billion dollars was targeted. We will break new records. In 2024, we aim for 60 million visitors and $60 billion in revenue. In 2028, Turkey has an income target of 100 billion dollars. In order to achieve our income target, we need to increase the number of visitors per capita from 56.7 million to 80 million with an average increase of 7 per cent from 56.7 million to 80 million with an average increase of 6 per cent in per capita per night income to 130 dollars. In 2023, the overnight expenditure per capita was 99 dollars. In 2024, we expect the overnight expenditure per person to increase to 106 dollars. In 2023, the average length of stay decreased from 10.8 nights to 9.8 nights.
Emphasising that the concentration on new markets will be increased, Minister Ersoy said
''There is the Scandinavian market. This year we are targeting a growth of 23 per cent in the Swedish market and 15 per cent in the Finnish market. The most important thing is that we have two new destinations. The first market is North America, the US market, we are targeting a growth of 31 per cent. We are targeting 41 per cent growth in the Canadian market. We expect 102 per cent growth in China.''
Pointing out that tourists should be taken out of the hotel and brought for 12 months, Minister Ersoy said that Turkey's most important weapon here is archaeology, that they will realise the work to be done on behalf of archaeology in the last 60 years in four years, and that night museology in ancient cities will be launched as of the 2024 summer season.
Approaching the targeted 60 million tourist figure in 2023, the total number of visitors who preferred Turkey in 2023 exceeded 56 million. According to the data announced by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, a total of 56 million 695 thousand 837 visitors were hosted in 2023. While the Russian Federation ranked first in the ranking of the countries sending the most visitors to Turkey, Germany ranked second and England (United Kingdom) ranked third. Bulgaria and Iran followed the UK.
In 2023, Russia, which sent 6 million 313 thousand visitors with an increase of 20.66 percent, maintained its first place among the countries sending the most visitors to Turkey, while the decline in the Russian market in September, October and November continued in December. The number of visitors from Russia, which received 229 thousand visitors with a decrease of 19.98 percent in December, decreased by 5.34 percent in September, 12.45 percent in October and 21.44 percent in November. In this period, 839 thousand visitors came from Ukraine with an increase of 24.32 percent, while 11 million 938 thousand people from CIS countries visited Turkey with an increase of 18.72 percent.
