Turkey attracted 64m tourists in 2025 but UK arrivals dip

International tourism to Turkey rose to almost 64 million travellers in 2025, according to official figures.

 

However, UK numbers dipped to 4.24 million last year from 4.43 million in 2024.

 

A spokesperson said: “While UK visitor numbers to Turkey were slightly lower in 2025 compared to 2024, it is worth noting that overall tourism revenue increased year on year.” 

 

The 2.7% total year on year increase led to total tourism revenues of $65.2 billion.

 

Turkey’s culture and tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy has set a target of €68 billion in 2026.

 

The country attracted 4.4 million UK travellers in 2024, up 16.6% on the previous year.

 

Overall, Turkey reported a 9.8% year-on-year increase in visitor numbers to 62.3 million in 2024, a figure 20.3% ahead of the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

 

Ersoy noted that the country’s tourism offering has evolved beyond sea, sand and sun, with growing diversity across culture and faith tourism, nature and eco-tourism, archaeology, health and thermal tourism, gastronomy, congress and fair tourism, cruise and winter tourism.

 

Highlighting the country’s growing global position, he said the country had become a major force in international tourism, citing data from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. 

 

He pointed out that Turkey ranked eighth worldwide for visitor numbers in 2017, rising to fourth place by 2024. 

 

In terms of tourism revenue, Turkey moved from 15th place in 2017 to seventh in 2024.