Turkey’s largest tourism fair to hosts 70 countries

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

The participants from Turkey and 70 countries promote their cities and tourism destinations during the EMITT.

The East Mediterranean International Travel and Tourism Exhibition (EMITT), one of the world’s largest tourism fairs, is opening its doors to visitors in Istanbul today and will remain open until Jan. 27.

Around 4,500 professionals from the tourism sector, including companies and development agencies coming from both Turkey and 70 other countries will participate in order to promote 150 cities in the 17th EMITT, held in the TÜYAP Exhibition Center in the Beylikdüzü district of Istanbul.

Turkey ranked sixth in the world in terms of tourism volume, hosting 30 million tourists last year. Fair officials said EMITT 2012 was the world’s fifth largest tourism fair, hosting a total of 4,500 participants and 128,000 visitors. However, they expect the participant and visitor numbers to hit a record this year.

Cities from Turkey will promote a number of tourism places in the category of mountaineering, trekking, botanical tourism, religion tourism, bird watching, plateau tourism, and winter tourism, as well as several modern accommodation options.
 
New participant countries
Portugal will attend the fair for the first time this year, while Libya will also participate in the fair after a break following its civil war. Argentina will be the guest country that will attend the fair from outside the Mediterranean region and give free tango lessons to visitors.