Turkey Expecting 26million Tourists This Year – 30million 2010

Despite the international crisis the Turkish government is still expecting to see 26 million tourists this year, a major growth on the 23 million received last year.

“We are expecting around 26 million tourists this year and our target for 2010 is 30 million if we could overcome the crisis,” Turkey’s culture and tourism minister Ertugrul Gunay told the Anadolu Agency.

Gunay said Turkey ranked 7th in the world in terms of number of tourists and 9th in terms of the revenues from tourism sector.

The Turkish minister also said the number of visitors increased by 1.1 percent as of July over the same period last year as other Mediterranean countries continued to see sharp drops such as Spain which he said had lost 5-8 percent of its visitors.

Gunay said number of tourists from France had increased up to 1 million in 2009 after “Turkish Season in France” had opened earlier this year, adding that 2010 would be “Japanese Year” in Turkey.

The number of tourists from the UK is also set to grow massively this year, as it has for the last few years. The Association of British Travel Agents is forecasting 25% growth in British tourism to Turkey this year, as the strong Euro makes people look outside the Eurozone for their holidays.

Turkish tourism is very much a growth sector, with budget and mainstream airlines from around the world regularly announcing new flights to and from the country to service the increased demand.