By News Center

Turkiye's Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy attended a meeting at the Ataturk Cultural Center (AKM), where 2022 in tourism was evaluated and targets for 2023-2028 were exchanged. Underscoring that a record income was achieved in 2022, Minister Ersoy said that "our target for 2023 is 60m tourists with 56bn dollars income and 100bn dollars in 2028".

Noting that they have created new target markets, Minister Ersoy said: "Wherever Turkish Airlines flies is our target market. We have created new target markets within the scope of product diversification. We will see very serious increases in these markets. The USA is the leading one. We exceeded 1m visitors from America this year. Our target next year is to host 1.7 or 1.8m visitors. In addition, we will head towards South America, Scandinavian, Gulf, and Far East countries. Another advantage of these countries is that they leave more money in per capita income since they come from distant destinations and their average stay is long."

Pointing out that Turkiye is by far the country that makes the most intense and most effective promotion in the world, Ersoy said: "We have achieved this with the establishment of the Turkish Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA). We focused on our promotions on television channels and digital in more than 200 countries. Thus, our tourism products and destinations will turn into the most well-known brands in the world."

Underlining that they have focused on the promotion of destinations since 2019, Minister of Culture and Tourism Ersoy said that "we have created various destination brands such as Istanbul is the new cool, TurkAegean, Turkish Riviera, and Tas Tepeler. In the 2023-2028 period, we will include 9 more main promotional brands into the system and promote a total of 20 newly branded products more intensively around the world. We need to memorize and memorize these 50 products globally. We will brand the products that need to be highlighted in certain processes, not only on a destination basis but also on a product basis. The most important thing here is to create content. We had a promotional film in 2018. In 2022, this figure has increased to 300. In 2028, we aim to realize this figure as 900 commercials".

"We will commission 7 more beaches in 2023; Bodrum Turkbuku, Torba, Koyunbaba, Kucuk Calticak, Hatay Pirinclik, Giresun Gure, and Istanbul Sile. By adding 7-8 more each year, the entire coast will spread 5-star comfort public beaches to our cities," said Ersoy, emphasizing that the concept of public beaches will continue to increase.

Saying that they have reached the level of hosting in every province, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said:

that not in certain destinations anymore, said,

"We have coordination institutions in all our provinces for 3 years together with the Provincial Tourism Promotion and Development Program. They work together with TGA on provincial promotion. In addition to GOTurkiye, each province has its own 'Go' account, and they carry out their activities here. We have registered a very serious increase in both visuals, social media content, and overseas digital promotion activities related to all provinces, and we will continue intensively," he said.

Noting that the tourism of the future has to be sustainable the minister said that "we also want to be the country that adapts to this change the fastest. We foresee that all of our accommodation facilities, which will reach 24,500 by 2030, will have completed the third stage of sustainability criteria. Turkiye was the first country in the world to implement it administratively via the ministry," he said.

Stating that they aim to brand the cities, where the Cultural Road Festivals take place, Ersoy made an assessment,

"We have realized this in 5 cities in 2022. This year, 6 more cities will be added, and our Cultural Road Festivals will be held in 11 cities. From now on, by adding 5 cities every year, festivals will be held in 36 cities in 2028. New cities are Adana, ?zmir, Nevsehir, Trabzon, Erzurum, Gaziantep. We want to spread our festivals equally to different parts of Anatolia.”

Pointing out that the geopolitical environment in Turkiye has always been challenging, Minister Ersoy continued as follows:

"While we are creating our tourism strategies, we have implemented these practices by thinking about how we can make Turkiye immune to crises. Our market diversification efforts are important in this regard. Turkiye is no longer dependent on one country. Therefore, it is not very important for a country to warn. We can fill our gap with the share of the pie it receives from different countries. Now, Turkish tourism has become immune to crises. For example, there was a negative reflection caused by the exchange rate differences in the dollar parity, but despite this, we were not affected much by the market and product diversity. As it is known, we live with global cost inflation. We must work on income, not cost, anymore. We have also recorded a solid increase in our income."

Culture and Tourism Minister Ersoy stated that they will add at least one more destination to the Michelin Guide besides Istanbul in 2023 and said that they aim to increase the number of cities added to the guide to 5 in 2028.

Sharing a roadmap on how to reach the targets, Minister Ersoy answered the questions of the journalists after the presentation.

Last year, package tour expenditures increased by 125.2 percent, spending on sports, education, and culture by 90.5 percent, and international transportation by 68.9 percent.

While travel, entertainment, sport, and cultural activities ranked first among the visitor's purposes with 67.1 percent, 64.4 percent of citizens residing abroad came to Turkiye mostly for visiting relatives and friends.