The FINANCIAL — Tourism Investors Association (TYD) President Turgut Gür has said Turkey is seventh in the world in terms of annual number of tourists and second in terms of bed capacity, according to Today's Zaman.
Gür, speaking to the Anatolia news agency, said there are 610,000 beds documented by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and an additional 400,000 documented by provincial municipalities. Turkey thus has a bed capacity of over 1 million — second only to Spain, according to Gür.
Regarding Turkey’s bed capacity, Gür noted this figure was reached with the help of government support programs and land allocations. “Twenty-five years ago Turkey could barely bring in 1 million tourists, and now we have 27 million coming in annually. In terms of income, this is $22 billion. We are thus seventh in the world in terms of the number of tourists,” he said.
Gür underlined that on average each bed meant $50,000 in investment, and that this meant “$30 billion in investment. The beds registered by municipalities equal about $15 billion in investment. In addition, with golf courses, conference halls, yachts, marinas and private planes, Turkey’s tourism portfolio is about $50 billion in financial terms.” He added that Turkey was able to achieve all of this in 25 years and brought in a total of 300 million tourists during that time. “This is an amazing accomplishment,” he said.
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