More visitors and higher prices push up Turkish tourism revenue
- Turkish tourism revenue rose 6.8%
- Q4 visitors up 10%
- Higher prices lifted earnings
Turkey’s tourism industry delivered a standout 2025, with strong visitor flows helping to push earnings to fresh highs and extend the season well beyond its traditional summer peak.
But industry executives caution the surge in revenues reflects more than rising demand alone. Higher prices driven by domestic inflation, alongside the managed valuation of the Turkish lira, have lifted nominal earnings while making the country feel more expensive for foreign visitors.
The tourism and hospitality sector generated just over $65 billion last year, according to data issued by the state statistics agency Turkstat, a 6.8 percent year-on-year increase.
Significantly, earnings for the fourth quarter – normally a slow season for the sector – climbed by 10 percent, bringing in just over $15 billion. This reflects recent efforts to promote Turkey as a year-round destination, including the country’s snow fields in the north and east and its more temperate coastal regions in the southwest.
Arrival numbers eclipsed past levels. Turkey hosted 64 million foreign guests in 2025, this number including more than 11 million overseas-based Turks visiting the homeland. The annualised 2.7 percent increase was bolstered by a 9.4 percent rise in arrivals in Q4.
Expatriates apart, the largest single visitor contingent came from Germany, at 13.5 million, followed by 6.7 million tourists from the Russian Federation.
While Turkey saw footfall increase from most of its major markets last year, one country that sent far fewer visitors than in 2024 was India, with arrivals down by a third.
The drop came amid ongoing tensions stemming from New Delhi’s May clash with Islamabad and Ankara’s strong support for Pakistan, which has cost the Turkish tourism sector.
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A rise in footfall helped lift revenues, but part of the increase reflected pricing inflation and the managed valuation of the lira, which has limited depreciation and left visitors facing a less favourable exchange rate, according to Ali Onaran, board chair of travel agency Prontotour.
“Clearly our country has become more expensive and while we want to increase tourist spending, increase tourism revenues, this has happened in part due to the over-valued Turkish lira,” he told AGBI.
Despite rising prices, Turkey remained a good tourism destination, Onaran said, with sustained growth going forward likely, though there was always the risk of tensions in the region casting a shadow on the sector.
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