New project launched to expand tourism year-round

ISTANBUL

The association of tourism agencies, affiliated to the Culture and Tourism Ministry, has introduced the "Century of Tourism" project, which aims to spread tourism over 12 months instead of seasonally and to attract wealthy tourists to the country.

The Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TÜRSAB) is implementing a new project to move forward in line with the "Century of Türkiye" vision put forward by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the second century of the republic and to contribute to the country's tourism.

TÜRSAB, which started the “Century of Tourism" project, will focus on one region every four months with 15,000 travel agencies and 37 regional representatives to ensure that each region gets the share it deserves from tourism.

Speaking at the introductory meeting of the project, TÜRSAB Chairman Firuz Bağlıkaya said, "We aim to spread tourism to 12 months and throughout the country and to increase our visitors from high income groups."

Bağlıkaya said that Türkiye is in a more advantageous position than its competitors, but the number of tourists coming to the country remains far below the current potential.

"We have a tourism product that can be offered in four seasons, but the number of visitors to Türkiye in January-February-March and November-December is 14.5 million. The tourists arriving in this period constitute 29 percent of our total visitors. In the same period, 31.2 million people visit Spain. Our goal is to carry tourism to the months outside the sea-sand-sun season as much as possible,” he said.

Stating that another goal is to ensure a balanced spread of tourism to all parts of the country, Bağlıkaya said that the touristic hotspots including Istanbul, Antalya, Muğla and İzmir have a share of 75 percent, while only 25 percent of incoming tourists are distributed to the remaining cities. Bağlıkaya emphasized that the goal is to spread the capacity contained in five cities to every corner of the country.