Türkiye’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, announced the country’s 2025 tourism results at a press conference held in İstanbul. Announcing Türkiye’s number of visitors for 2025 as 64 million, Minister Ersoy also revealed last year’s tourism revenues as 65 billion 231 million USD.
Ersoy said, “We are aiming for 68 billion dollars in 2026”
Minister Ersoy highlighted that Turkish tourism has now become a force not only on a regional but also a global scale, according to data from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. He reminded that in 2017, Türkiye ranked 8th among countries hosting the most tourists in the world, but by 2024 it had risen to 4th place. Ersoy also noted that, in terms of tourism revenue, Türkiye ranked 15th in 2017 but had climbed to 7th by 2024, and he announced a target of 68 billion US dollars for 2026.
Minister Ersoy stated that Türkiye has now gained a strong reflex and serious experience in managing crises and he noted that Türkiye’s tourism sector has moved beyond just sea, sand, and sun tourism; there is a growing diversity in many areas such as culture and faith tourism, nature and eco-tourism, archaeology, health and thermal tourism, gastronomy, congress and fair tourism, cruise tourism, and winter tourism.
Minister Ersoy stated that the 'Heritage for the Future' vision and Night Museum projects are among the few achievements in the world that only a limited number of countries can accomplish, and that Türkiye has become one of the most successful examples in this field. Highlighting that the “miniseries' model used in the promotional strategy has also achieved great success on a global scale, Ersoy noted that a single episode of the series "An Istanbul Story' reached 32 million views, and even the least viewed content received 10 million views.
Some highlights from Türkiye’s 2025 tourism results:
Türkiye’s 3 biggest markets:
1. The Russian Federation: 6.90M
2. Germany: 6.75M
3. UK: 4.27M