STORY: Türkiye to meet targets for 2023 tourism season: industry insider
DATELINE: Sept. 21, 2023
LENGTH: 00:03:17
LOCATION: Ankara
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of tourists at Antalya airport (courtesy of ihlas news agency)
2. various of tourists at the beaches of Antalya (courtesy of ihlas news agency)
3. various of tourists from a cruise ship at Bodrum, Mugla (courtesy of ihlas news agency)
4. various of tourists at the beaches of Antalya (courtesy of ihlas news agency)
5. various of tourists at the Black Sea (courtesy of ihlas news agency)
6. various of tourists at Cappadocia (courtesy of ihlas news agency)
7. SOUNDBITE (Turkish): MURAT TOKTAS, Vice president of Turkish Hoteliers Federation

STORYLINE:

Murat Toktas, vice president of the Turkish Hoteliers Federation and chairperson of the Black Sea Tourism Operators Association, said that Türkiye will meet the targets for this year's tourism season.

Official data show that the number of tourists visiting Türkiye in the first half of this year increased by 17 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching 22.9 million.

Revenues from the tourism sector reached 21.7 billion dollars in the first six months of this year, a 27 percent uptick from the previous year.

SOUNDBITE (Turkish): MURAT TOKTAS, Vice president of Turkish Hoteliers Federation
"It appears that we will reach the targets fixed for this year, which means 60 million foreign tourists and 56 billion U.S dollars in revenue. In the first seven months of this year, Türkiye welcomed around 30 million foreign travelers. We have had a very bad start to this year's tourism season because of the earthquakes, which coincided with the early bookings period. This has seriously demoralized the tourism industry and potential customers abroad. We have had a serious loss in early bookings due to the earthquakes. But luckily the warm weather came later in June. Therefore, the real start of the tourism season was in June and will last longer than usual, according to our booking data. The usual volume of reservations that used to end in September has been prolonged to October and beyond. This tourism season started late and is anticipated to last longer."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Ankara.
(XHTV)