Despite geopolitical tensions, Turkey beats odds in tourism

Turkey welcomed 64 million tourists and earned $65.2 billion (TL 2.84 trillion) in revenue in 2025, both figures up from the previous year despite geopolitical challenges in the region, Turkish Hoteliers Federation (TÜROFED) President Erkan Yağcı told Anadolu Agency (AA).

Yağcı said Turkey is "a truly powerful tourism country in the world,", mentioning that the number of tourists grew 3% and tourism revenue surged 7% in 2025 compared to the previous year.

"2025 was a year when we achieved the highest tourism figures," he said, explaining that it was a successful year "both in terms of the number of people and revenue."

He also drew attention to the fact that Turkey became the fourth-most-visited country in the world, suggesting this "was a significant achievement."

"While we’re aware of the geopolitical challenges facing our region, we kicked off 2026 with hope, and we believe we’ll close out this year with figures slightly above last year’s," he further said.

"The Turkish tourism sector is a crisis-resistant business, and as long as we do our best, we will once again achieve record revenue and tourist counts."

Yağcı also said the goal is to "spread tourism over 12 months and across all regions" to ensure tourists also visit the winter and off-season in addition to the summer.

Focus on Antalya

"Efforts are underway in different areas like sports and conference tourism, as we aim to boost the number of tourists in winter as well," he said, noting that conference tourism is more prominent in the winter and spring seasons, while the resort city of Antalya in the country’s southwest hosts numerous national and international events every year.

He mentioned that this year the city will hold the Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF) 2026 on April 17-19, the 77th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) on Oct. 5-9, and the U.N. climate change conference COP31 on Nov. 9-20.

"Antalya is also one of the top 10 cities in the world in terms of tourist capacity," he added.

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

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