Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 16
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
China will hold about 50 events to introduce the visitors with the tourism sector of Turkey, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey told Trend on Friday.
"It is expected that the delegation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey will visit China to coordinate the programs in the coming days," the ministry said.
Previously, the ministry told Trend that the country plans to develop cooperation in tourism with Asian countries, and they will primarily cover China, Japan, South Korea and India.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu during his last visit to China noted that until 2018 Ankara plans to host at least three million Chinese tourists. For comparison, by the end of 2016, Turkey was visited by only 313,000 tourists from China.
In turn, the Chinese government declared 2018 the "Year of Tourism of Turkey."
Turkey is actively developing the tourism sector. According to the Institute of Statistics of Turkey, in the second quarter of 2017, tourism revenues in this country increased by 8.7 percent compared to the same period in 2016, amounting to $5.4 billion.
During the first half of the year, 12.25 million foreigners visited Turkey, which is 14.05 percent more compared to January-June 2016.
The number of foreigners who visited Turkey only in June 2017 was 43 percent higher than the same month last year.
In June of this year, almost 3.5 million foreigners visited Turkey, 42,000 of which were sent by transit through Turkey to other countries.