A surge in foreign visitors helped Turkey achieve record tourism revenue in the third quarter of 2023, official data released on Tuesday showed, suggesting the country could meet its ambitious long-term goals, Daily Sabah reported, Xinhua and Agerpres reported.

Between July and September 2023, tourism receipts increased by 13.1% year-on-year to a record $20.2 billion. Also, in the nine months of this year, revenues from tourism increased by 20.1% to 42 billion dollars, the Statistical Institute of Turkey (TurkStat) reported.

Separately, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism reported that 5.8 million tourists arrived in Turkey in September, which is 5.7% more than in the same period of 2022. In the first nine months of this year, the number of tourists reached 39.2 million, an annual advance of 12.6%.

Tourism is an important source of income for Ankara’s government, which is focused on reducing the current account deficit to counter high inflation.

The Turkish government expects the number of foreign visitors to reach 60 million this year and tourism revenue to increase to $56 billion, and in 2028, the number of foreign tourists will reach 90 million and tourism revenue to reach $100 billion. Last year, Turkey was visited by 51.4 million tourists, and revenues amounted to more than 46 billion dollars.

Russian tourists are the most this year

This year’s success was due to an increase in tourists from Europe, especially Germany and Great Britain, in addition to arrivals from Russia, largely due to restrictions imposed by the West after the invasion of Ukraine.

In the first nine months of this year, more than 5.16 million Russians, more than 4.8 million Germans, 3.16 million Britons and approximately 2.15 million Bulgarians arrived in Turkey.

Tourism accounts for about 10% of Turkey’s gross domestic product, and in 2022, the tourism sector employed about 1.7 million people, representing about 5% of the total workforce.

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