Turkey will explore new markets in Asia to boost its tourism and diversify the sector which is on the path to recovery, Xinhua reported citing the Anadolu News Agency.
"In line of the strategy that we have determined, we aim to become one of the three tourism destinations in the world in the next ten years," said Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Numan Kurtulmus.
He particularly explained that "long forgotten" countries of the Far East part of the world, namely China, India, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia, will constitute a strategic market for the Turkish tourism.
He reminded that 2018 will be "Year of Turkey Tourism " in China with a variety of 50 events planned. Currently, Turkish Airlines flies to five cities in China and this number is expected to increase, according to officials.
According to official data, Turkey has welcomed 26 million tourists in the first nine months of 2017 and aims to top this number to around 31 million until the end of the year. Turkish tourism players want to host 1 million Chinese travelers in 2018.
