Türkiye Climbs Ranks of Most Visited Countries with Strong 2025
by Bruce Parkinson
Canadian visitors to Turkiye rose 8.6% in the first half of 2026.
Türkiye’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, announced Türkiye’s number of visitors for 2025 as 64 million, with last year’s tourism revenues reaching $90 billion.
“We are aiming for $92.7 billion dollars in 2026,” Ersoy said.
In a presentation, the minister highlighted that Turkish tourism has become a force not only on a regional but also a global scale, according to data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
In 2017, Türkiye ranked eighth among countries hosting the most tourists in the world, but by 2024 it had risen to fourth place. Ersoy also noted that, in terms of tourism revenue, Türkiye ranked 15th in 2017 but had climbed to seventh by 2024.
Türkiye exists in a sometimes turbulent region, but the Tourism Minister stressed that the nation “has now gained a strong reflex and serious experience in managing crises.”
He also noted that Türkiye’s tourism sector has moved beyond just sea, sand, and sun tourism — there is a growing diversity in areas such as: culture and faith, nature and eco-tourism, archaeology, health and thermal, gastronomy, congress and fair, cruise, and winter tourism.
Highlighting that the “miniseries” model used in the promotional strategy has also achieved great success on a global scale, Ersoy noted that a single episode of the series “An Istanbul Story” reached 32 million views.
| Türkiye Tourism | 2025 | 2024-2025 growth | 2017-2025 growth |
| Number of visitors: | 63,941.000 | +2.7% | +68% |
| Tourism revenues: | $65,231 billion USD | +6.8% | +109% |
| Spend per night: | $100.00 USD | +3.6% | +36% |
Türkiye’s 3 biggest markets:
Russia: 6.90M visitors
Germany: 6.75M visitors
UK: 4.27M visitors
