Gür, speaking to the Anatolia news agency, said there are 610,000 beds documented by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and an additional 400,000 documented by provincial municipalities. Turkey thus has a bed capacity of over 1 million -- second only to Spain, according to Gür.
Regarding Turkey’s bed capacity, Gür noted this figure was reached with the help of government support programs and land allocations. “Twenty-five years ago Turkey could barely bring in 1 million tourists, and now we have 27 million coming in annually. In terms of income, this is $22 billion. We are thus seventh in the world in terms of the number of tourists,” he said.
Gür underlined that on average each bed meant $50,000 in investment, and that this meant “$30 billion in investment. The beds registered by municipalities equal about $15 billion in investment. In addition, with golf courses, conference halls, yachts, marinas and private planes, Turkey’s tourism portfolio is about $50 billion in financial terms.” He added that Turkey was able to achieve all of this in 25 years and brought in a total of 300 million tourists during that time. “This is an amazing accomplishment,” he said.
