Erdogan: Turkey to become world-leading tourist destination

Turkey will become the leading tourist destination, the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, the Turkish newspaper Star reported Feb. 8.

Over the 13-year rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey achieved great successes in the field of tourism, the president said.

Erdogan said that Turkey will do everything possible to increase the number of tourists visiting the country.

In 2015, as many as 29.6 million tourists visited the country, and 12.4 million of them visited Istanbul, according to the Institute of Statistics of Turkey.

In the third quarter of 2015, Turkey's tourism revenues totaled $12.2 billion.

As of today, the world’s top tourist destination is France, with 83 million foreign tourists. So it remains the global leader, with the dynamic tourism sector boasting a surplus and rapidly transforming under the combined effect of a new, emerging clientele and a broader range of things on offer to international tourists.

/By Trend/