Tourism in Turkey

While Turkey may already be a major player in the tourism market, the Turkish Tourism and Culture office have announced ambitious plans to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Turkish Republic in 2023. Ismet Yilmax, under-secretary to the department of Tourism and Culture believes that the country can increase visitor numbers to more than 50 million a year, and increase tourist related revenues to more than $50 billion a year!


On the face of it, these targets are very ambitious and while not to say impossible, there will be much work to be done in the country before they can even accommodate that number of visitors, never mind attract them to the country. There is no doubt that Turkey is a very popular destination for tourists from all over the world, but at this moment in time the industry is very much focused on the so called “sand and sea” beach resorts. While these will always be very important elements of any tourist industry, there will need to be changes to attract the numbers being mentioned. Turkey plans to up the numbers of people working in tourism to 5 million and extend its fleet by 500 planes.

The Tourism and Culture office believe that the country needs to bring other areas of the tourism industry to the fore, including more concentration on the history of Turkey, the surrounding areas and culture and diversification in areas such as medical tourism in which it is already making headway. There are also ambitious plans to create a number of exclusive resort areas which they believe will attract the more wealthy tourists to the country. In order to expand Turkey’s tourism reach it is believed the country needs 10 new conference centres, 40 new marinas and 25 new cruise ports. So what does this mean for the property industry in Turkey?

Apart from the fact that there will be an increased bed capacity requirement in the form of many more hotels and other accommodation throughout in the country, if they are able to get anywhere near the figures mentioned, this could easily prompt a property boom in the country with greater demand placed on existing holiday homes already built in key tourist resorts. While the plans are still at an early stage, and somewhat ambitious, Turkey could be a very interesting property market to watch over the next few years.
http://www.nubricks.com/archives/536/turkey-tourism-future-plans/#more-536