According to the World Tourism Organisation's latest report, issued in June 2005, Turkey is ranked in 8th place in the list of the World's biggest earners from tourism. In the previous year, Turkey climbed one position from 10th to 9th by changing places with Greece, and a year later Turkey has passed Australia as well.

Turkey has achieved a fascinating growth over the past twenty-five years. In 1980 Turkey's tourism income was only 326 million US Dollars whereas by 2004 it had increased to almost 16 billion US Dollars. The number of international visitors was only 1.2 million in 1980 which had risen to 17.5 million by 2004. It is expected that Turkey will welcome more than 20 million visitors by the end of 2005.

When the Turkish Ministry of Tourism was established in 1963, to achieve these figures was but a dream. In that year Turkey received only 198,000 visitors. There were few accommodation facilities at the time; international awareness of Turkey, especially as a tourist destination, was quite low and the infrastructure was poor.

The Ministry of Tourism of that early stage was responsible for planning, building the infrastructure, promotion, controlling prices, financing the sector through its Tourism Bank and even running some hotels.

It was in the 1980's that Turkish tourism first began its dramatic increase in popularity. The government had taken a series of measures to encourage the development of the fledgling tourism industry. Incentives such as: making land freely available for tourism investments; grants for investments; loans and credit with low interest rates; tax exemptions; and discounts on electric, water and gas bills resulted in some of the Mediterranean's newest properties being developed in Turkey. The Turkish Government continued investing in tourism infrastructure during the 1980's as well as in superstructure. The Ministry opened tourism schools where students could both study theory and gain practical experience before starting work in the field of tourism. Existing hotel staff were also given training in their work place. Alongside this, the government took on the challenge of increasing the understanding of tourism amongst the general public through mass media campaigns to promote public awareness of the importance of tourism.

By the early 1990's few of the financial incentives offered by the government remained. The focus had shifted instead to marketing and promotion as well as to the need for diversification of the tourism product. The marketing budget was increased dramatically and a number of new projects were introduced to create new products such as golf, faith tourism, rafting, water sports and health and well being.

Today Turkey has a capacity of at least a million quality beds. The hotels, which were run by the government, have been completely privatized. Tourism now creates more than 3 million jobs in Turkey and constitutes approximately 30 % of the whole export income of the country. In addition to this, 6 % of the national income is provided by tourism.

The Turkish government conducts huge advertising and promotional campaigns in 56 countries through the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's 40 overseas offices. The UK is Turkey's third largest market and as such is one of the countries where Turkey advertises most heavily.

Tourism is a very competitive market. The UK is the 3rd biggest tourism spender in the world and the British market is extremely competitive. Turkey has gained a very strong position in the UK leisure travel market. Last year, Turkey welcomed nearly 1.4 million British visitors which is a 27 % increase on the previous year. This figure took Turkey to the third place in the UK's package holiday market, after Spain and Greece.

                    NUMBER OF BRITONS TO TURKEY (1984-2004)

2005 has been Turkey's most successful year to date. The majority of visitors to Turkey from Britain are families with children. The number of summer holiday bookings to Turkey is up by 38 % according to the AC Nielsen Travel Track report issued in July. The number of arrivals from the UK to Turkey increased by 34% on the previous year reaching 615,644 in the first six months of the year.

The great majority of British people visit the coastal areas of Turkey for their summer holidays. The main provinces of Turkey visited by the British last year are given in the chart below. As it is seen on the chart, most British tourists choose to visit the province of Mugla to stay in popular tourist resorts such as Marmaris, Ölüdeniz, Fethiye and Bodrum. There are 4 million Germans visiting Turkey yearly and their preference is to stay in the province of Antalya rather than in Mugla.

Turkey is one of the fastest growing destinations in the world and it seems certain that Turkey will be reaching still higher ranks in the World Tourism league. Today's challenge in Turkish tourism, however, rather than to increase numbers, is to spread tourism to less popular regions as well as to encourage visitors during the winter season. These factors are important to ensure that tourism is sustainable and to avoid the devastating effect of overcrowding and strong seasonality.