Tourism - Travel - Tour

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:37:00 +0300

Tourism in Turkey is focused largely on a variety of archaeological and historical sites, and on seaside resorts along its Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. In the recent years, Turkey is also becoming a popular destination for spa and health care tourism.

Foreign tourists mainly come from the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and Japan, but tourists from Arab countries, Iran, the USA, France and Scandinavia are not uncommon. There seems to be a trend in which British tourists tend to go on holiday to Aegean resorts such as Bodrum or Marmaris, whilst German and Russian tourists almost exclusively go to resorts on the Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey (e.g. Antalya) and Japanese tourists mainly visit Istanbul and historical sites such as Ephesus (although in both cases, tourists from almost all over the world can be found in these places, Japanese tourists visit them in very large numbers).

People from Spain have become usual tourists in recent years. In 2006, 200,000 Spaniards visited Turkey, although that number is well below the number of tourists from other countries, it tends to improve each year. Most Spaniards book hotels in Istanbul (that is becoming a top-favourite city for Spaniards) and a lot of them also visit Cappadocia.

Foreign tourist arrivals increased substantially in Turkey between 2002 and 2005, from 12.8 million to 21.2 million, which made Turkey a top-10 destination in the world for foreign visitors. 2005 revenues are US$17.5 billion which also made Turkey the top-10 biggest revenue owners in the world.

.. ( devamı )