Turkish Tourism to Hit 30 Million Visitors by 2011

If Turkey doesn't hit 30 million visitors this year, then it will stagger it, leaving it in good stead to hit the milestone in 2011, according to Turkey based real estate agent New Home in Turkey. The firm believes that the unique factors driving growth this year could push it towards 30 million, and the natural growth from word of mouth and the continuance of these factors will push it higher in 2011.

"We have just witnessed a unique couple of years for Turkish tourism. In 2009 we had growth from Britain and other places fuelled by the strong euro. This continued into this year, and since the euro strengthened we have seen Turkey's competitors in sovereign debt crises, and a surge in people taking last minute deals to Turkey and other low cost destinations," said director of the firm Aydin Cakir.

We have all watched Turkey's rise in the last couple of years. Whether or not it is the natural progression from Turkey's rising status as a holiday home destination from 2006 or not is unknown, but what is known is that its competition being hampered by bad press, has certainly helped its shine to be seen by a wider audience.

To explain, we have Greece and Italy hampered by the sovereign debt crisis this year, and Spain hampered first from its having among the worst crash of all the world, and then from its being caught up in the sovereign debt crisis as well.

This growth has been helped by the late-minute-deal-rush as mentioned by Mr Cakir. Basically, things like the ash-cloud and the hung parliament stopped people from booking holidays, leaving travel agents with massive amounts of late-deal stock to shift in its aftermath. The agents reported Turkey was a leading benefactor of this boom.

Then of course, you have the fact that Turkey was voted the top destination in the world by readers of Conde Nast Traveller magazine. This is a testament to how far Turkish tourism has come and could also propel future growth, according to Cakir:

"Turkey is a great place to visit, and for everything that brings or signals growth, more growth is born from the subsequent word of mouth. What we also see is that a high proportion of today's holidaymakers become the holiday home buyers of the future, so of course it is good for the property market as well," he said.

"Antalya property is particularly prominent in this trend; we see it having a higher percentage of buyers to tourists going forward,"e; he said.

Like this post? Subscribe to our feed by RSS or Email, join our newsletter(s) or leave a comment using the form below.