Turkey should emphasize attracting sports tourists since the income from them is about twice the income from the usual “beachcomber”. This assessment was presented by the columnist of the Dünya newspaper Sadi Ozdemir, explaining how Turkey will earn twice as much from tourists. “Revenue per guest in sports tourism is roughly double the average revenue per tourist and, while overall tourism revenues worldwide have grown in the single digits, sports tourism has seen double-digit growth,” he said.
First of all, the expert recalled that the Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced the goal of “50 million tourists and an income of 44 billion dollars” by 2022. “If we calculate, our income per tourist will be approximately $880. In this case, our income from tourism will cover a significant part of the large expenses in connection with the global energy crisis,” said the Turkish expert.
However, he emphasizes that there is another point of view. Many say that the income per tourist is very low in Turkey, “people come and live in our country for free.” Opponents of “all-inclusive”, etc., also talk about this.
“However, tourism professionals know that the income per tourist in Spain, France, or Greece, which are always given as an example, is close to ours and ranges between 700-950 dollars. Because the main source of total income from tourism all over the world is “mass” tourism. But there are niche industries that are significantly more expensive,” the expert noted.
According to him, in addition to “sea, sand and sun tourism”, Turkey can also successfully develop another type of tourism, which is at the peak of popularity in recent years “in all tourist countries with good infrastructure”, this is “sports” tourism. “Investments in sports infrastructure have largely been completed, and a large part of our hotels have realized the importance of sports for their guests. We will remind, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the annual turnover of sports tourism around the world was estimated at 200 billion dollars, but Turkey’s share in this cake was approximately 2 billion dollars,” the expert said. According to him, the total number of foreigners who come to Turkey annually for vacation, hiking or golf, soccer, sailing, tennis, etc., has exceeded approximately 1 million.
“At this stage, I would like to draw attention to an interesting fact. Profit per guest” in sports tourism is approximate twice the average revenue per tourist. While overall global tourism receipts grew by single digits, sports tourism saw double-digit growth. This momentum continues. And Turkey needs to step up its participation,” the expert said.