Türkiye welcomes over 299,000 cruise passengers in Jan-May

Türkiye welcomed over 299,000 cruise passengers from January to May, surging 114% from a year ago, the country’s transportation minister said.

Cruise tourism gained momentum after Istanbul’s new mega Galataport became operational in the last quarter of 2021, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Cruise tourism investments will continue and ‘Century of Türkiye’ will be the century of cruise tourism,” he said.

“With the recent surge in investments, cruise tourism in Türkiye is experiencing exponential growth. Our dedication to developing cruise tourism is paying off, as evident in the increasing number of cruise passengers we have welcomed, despite the setback caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first five months of 2023 alone, we hosted over 299,000 cruise passengers, showcasing a 43.1% rise in the number of cruise ships docking at our ports and 114% surge in cruise passenger numbers compared to the same period last year,” he said.

The number of cruise ships docked at Türkiye’s ports soared 43.1% year-on-year in the first five months of this year.

A total of 157,940 cruise passengers were hosted at Kuşadası Port on Türkiye’s Aegean coast, 67,740 at Galataport, 3,276 at Istanbul’s TDI Sarayburnu dock, and 14,777 passengers at Antalya port, he said.

Located in Istanbul’s Karaköy neighborhood, Galataport was mainly seen set to inject a shot in the arm of the crucial tourism industry that has been plagued by the coronavirus pandemic.

Opened in October 2021 – a year later than planned because of the pandemic – the port is home to a shopping center, a hotel, cultural venues and many famous restaurant chains.

The project also opened up a 1.2-kilometer (0.74-mile) coastline that had been closed to public use for 200 years. The port has been built on a total of 400,000 square meters area, including 250,000 square meters underground.

Tourism revenue is critical to Türkiye as the government focuses on reducing the current account deficit to tackle high inflation.

Last year’s complete rebound from the pandemic fallout saw the number of tourists near a record, generating all-time high revenues and prompting the government to raise its annual tourism estimates.

The government has said foreign arrivals are expected to reach 60 million in 2023 before hitting 90 million in 2028. For the income, it sees it rising to $56 billion this year and $100 billion five years from now.

Foreign visitors surged 80.33% year-over-year to 44.6 million in 2022, just shy of the peak of 45.1 million in 2019. The figure is compared to the 24.71 million arrivals in 2021 and 12.73 million in 2020.

Revenues climbed 53.4% from a year earlier to a record high of nearly $46.3 billion, as lingering pandemic effects dissipated and the Ukraine war fallout drove a surge of Russian arrivals, partly due to flight restrictions imposed by Western nations on Russia.

Last year’s income blew past the previous high of $38.4 billion in 2019 before the pandemic hit. The figure stood at $30.2 billion in 2021 after the outbreak more than halved it to just $14.8 billion in 2020.

Tourism contributes about 10% to Türkiye’s gross domestic product (GDP). In addition, around 1.7 million people worked in accommodation and food services in 2022 – about 5% of total employment.