Türkiye Tourism has significantly upped its activities in the Indian market in 2024, starting with a 6-city roadshow
Having identified India as one of its key emerging source markets in the world, Türkiye Tourism has significantly upped its activities in the Indian market in 2024, starting with a 6-city roadshow that is currently on across the country.
Deputy Director General for Promotion, Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Republic of Türkiye Onur Gözet, who is leading the roadshow in India says that Türkiye received about 270,000 Indian tourists in 2023 and the country is now targetting 350,000 visitors in the current year.
Onur Gözet
“Our biggest traditional markets are the European markets like Germany, United Kingdom and Russia, but we give utmost importance to reach the new and emerging markets in global tourism and India as a source market is one of the leaders of the emerging markets worldwide for Türkiye,’’ says Gözet.
For Türkiye, destination weddings and MICE Tourism are amongst the most important, but the country has a lot more to offer and hence is promoting its diverse tourism attractions in the market. These range from winter and sports tourism to spiritual tourism as well as increasingly popular niches like wine tourism. Home to a large number of monuments, many dating back to over 1,000 years or more, Türkiye has a rich collection of heritage tourism sites that attract millions of visitors each year.
‘‘As part of the diversification of products, we try to promote our unknown destinations like Eastern Anatolia, Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. Similarly, we also try to diversify our source markets, not just the most important and large cities. So besides Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, the other cities of India are also important for us for generating tourism,’’ Gözet tells India Outbound.
It is not just different destinations in Türkiye, but the country is also promoting experiences in India like wine tourism, culture and gastronomy, says Gözet. For instance, to promote wine tourism, Türkiye has developed an entire circuit of wine tourism, with several destinations and routes that are now being promoted, he says.
While Covid-19 pandemic did affect MICE tourism more since it has numerous organisational challenges events need to be planned and finalised one or two years before, but Gözet says that the segment has fully recovered and now the country is getting the same number of MICE tourists from India as it was in the pre-pandemic period.
In terms of emerging trends in the global tourism industry, Gözet says that just as sustainability is an increasingly important issue for global tourism industry, in Türkiye, too, the issue has been taken up in a serious manner by the government and the tourism ministry, together with the tourism development promotion agency, has started to implement a sustainable tourism programme.
“Last year, we signed a protocol with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council and we put the criteria of GSTC that need to be followed by hotels, tour operators and other tourism establishments in Türkiye. It is a three-step programme. First the hotels and other tourism companies and they need to be meeting the standards to get Sustainable Tourism Certificate,’’ says Gözet.
The growth in tourism to Türkiye is also partly due to good connectivity as Turkish Airlines and IndiGo together have 14 direct flights every week from Delhi and Mumbai and the Turkish civil aviation ministry is engaged in discussions with other carriers to enhance this capacity going further.
In terms of promotion in India, Türkiye Tourism is using multiple channels, both online and offline. It says it hosted over 7,000 tourism professionals and influencers last year and this will be continued this year, across the world, including in India.
