Gunay: "Turkey's tourism growth last year stood out worldwide"

Turkey is the only country among the world's top 10 tourist destinations that was able to achieve growth in tourism last year, said Culture and Tourism Minister Ertugrul Gunay yesterday. Looking back at 2010, Gunay told the Anatolia news agency that the Turkish tourism industry's stable growth shows that the country has been strengthening its place as a leading player in the world tourism market, which is expected to reach total revenues of $1 trillion in a few years. Turkey saw 3 percent growth in tourism even in 2009, when the global market shrank 4 percent due to the global financial crisis, he added. "Back in 2003, 13 million tourists came to Turkey," he said. "Last year, we exceeded 28 million, meaning that Turkey has had over 100 percent growth in the past eight years." At the end of 2010, Turkey ranked seventh in the world in terms of incoming visitors and ninth in terms of tourism revenues, Gunay said. He added that after tourism revenues of $21 billion in 2009, Turkey likely had $23 billion last year. On his ministry's efforts to boost tourism revenues, Gunay said they are working on strategies to diversify tourism destinations and attract tourists from coastal areas to inland destinations.