Türkiye’s tourism revenues climbed to an all-time high in the first nine months of the year, according to official data on Friday that top official said indicates the year-end goals would be achieved.

Income surpassed $50 billion from January through September, a 5.7% year-over-year increase, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

“Tourism revenues for the first nine months last year were $47.3 billion. This year, we’ve reached $50 billion, a record-breaking income for Türkiye,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy told an event in Istanbul.

“As a result of positive developments, we can say that we will achieve our year-end target of $64 billion,” Ersoy said.

In the third quarter, revenues climbed 3.9% from a year ago to $24.26 billion, the data showed. Of that amount, $24.05 billion came from foreign tourists and $211 million from Turkish citizens residing abroad.

Individual spending accounted for almost $16 billion of total income in the July-September period, while $8.1 billion came from package tours, the data showed.

Total arrivals in the first nine months rose 1.65% to almost 50 million, separate data by the Culture and Tourism Ministry showed on Friday, including over 8.4 million Turks living abroad.

In September, the total figure rose 2.62% year-over-year to nearly 7.1 million.

Foreign tourist arrivals fell by nearly 0.7% year-over-year to 41.57 million, the data showed. Last month, that figure rose 0.54% to almost 6.1 million.

Ersoy said per capita spending continues to rise steadily.

The average nightly expenditure per visitor reached $116 in the first nine months, he said, a 9% increase from a year ago.

Ersoy said preliminary data for October looked very positive. “Based on the provisional numbers, we can already see that October performed quite well,” he noted.

For the whole of 2025, the country aims to attract 65 million visitors, including Turks living abroad, up from nearly 62.3 million last year.

That made Türkiye the world’s fourth-most visited country, according to data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

Foreign arrivals jumped to 52.6 million, surpassing the previous record of 49.2 million in 2023.

Tourism is a vital industry that Türkiye relies on to help flip its chronic current account deficit to a surplus.

The sector contributes about 10% to Türkiye’s gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for about 5% of total employment.

The tourism income jumped 8.3% in 2024 to $61.1 billion and blew past the previous high of $54.3 billion in 2023.


The Daily Sabah Newsletter


Keep up to date with what’s happening in Turkey,
it’s region and the world.



SIGN ME UP


You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.