Turkey welcomed 64 million visitors in 2025, generating €54.9 billion in tourism revenue, Turkish Development Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy has told a press conference in Istanbul. He added that the country aims to reach €57 billion in tourism revenue in 2026.
Ersoy said that according to United Nations World Tourism Organization data, Turkey ranked eighth among the countries hosting the most tourists in 2017 and rose to fourth by 2024. Regarding tourism revenue, Turkey was 15th in 2017 and seventh in 2024.
The minister said Turkey has developed strong crisis management capabilities and that the tourism sector now extends beyond “sea, sand and sun,” expanding into cultural and religious tourism, ecotourism, archaeology, health tourism, gastronomy, conference tourism, cruise tourism and winter tourism. He added that the programs Heritage for the Future and Night Museums are initiatives that few countries can achieve and that Turkey is one of the most successful examples in this area.
For 2025, the top three inbound tourism markets were Russia with 6.9 million visitors, Germany with 6.75 million visitors and the United Kingdom with 4.27 million visitors.