Finance Minister Şimşek hails ‘boom’ in tourism

ANKARA

Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has welcomed the latest tourism numbers, saying that tourism revenues will help reduce the current account deficit.

“Tourism is booming! Türkiye welcomes a remarkable 7.1 million foreign visitors in one month, marking the best July in history,” Şimşek wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Türkiye’s current account deficit is expected to shrink significantly, from a 12-month rolling deficit of $56 billion in June to around $40 billion in December, thanks to a slowdown in consumer loan growth and a sharp rise in tourism revenues, the minister said.

“This is supportive of a more stable [Turkish] Lira.”

Tourism is one of the major sources of hard currency for the country’s economy.

In July, foreign tourist arrivals increased by 7.3 percent from a year earlier, the data from the Tourism Ministry showed last week.

More than 30 million tourists visited Türkiye in the first seven months of the year, raising hopes that the country may host a record number of holidaymakers in 2023.

Foreign tourist arrivals rose by 16.2 percent in January-July to 26.8 million, while 3.3 million Turkish citizens residing abroad vacationed in the country during the same period.

In the same period of 2019, Türkiye hosted 26.77 million foreign visitors.

As a whole in 2019, Türkiye received a record number of tourists, including more than 45 million foreigners and 6.7 million Turks residing abroad.

Despite the ongoing war with Ukraine, tourists from Russia increased from 2.2 million in January-July 2022 to 3.5 million in the first seven months of 2023.

Germans constituted the second largest group of foreign holidaymakers at 3.2 million, up from 2.99 million a year ago.

Some 2.1 million Britons vacationed in Türkiye in the same period, rising from 1.8 million a year earlier.

Tourism revenues

Türkiye’s tourism revenues amounted to $21.7 billion in the first half of 2023, rising by a strong 27 percent from the January-June period of last year.

The country set a target of attracting 60 million tourists and generating $56 billion in tourism revenues in 2023.

Türkiye posted a current account surplus of $674 million in June thanks to strong tourism revenues and a smaller trade deficit due to a fall in global energy prices after reporting a deficit of $7.84 billion in May. 

Travel item recorded a net inflow of $4.2 billion in the month, according to the latest data from the Central Bank.