Driving Türkiye’s Travel and Tourism Development

The report examines Türkiye's travel and tourism (T&T) landscape, identifying strengths in cultural resources and air infrastructure alongside sustainability risks like environmental degradation and high seasonality. It argues that big data—sourced from digital payments, mobile devices, and online platforms—can enable real-time monitoring of tourism flows and environmental impacts. To achieve this, the document recommends investments in ICT infrastructure, digital skills, and governance frameworks to overcome current gaps in expertise and data privacy.

• Türkiye possesses strong T&T enablers, particularly in cultural and non-leisure resources and air-transport infrastructure, but faces significant sustainability hurdles including environmental degradation and high seasonality.
• The T&T sector in Türkiye is characterized by extreme geographic concentration, with Antalya and Istanbul accounting for nearly 50% of all tourists and 80% of international visitors.
• Environmental risks are acute in Türkiye's popular beach destinations, where water stress is high and there is a medium-high risk of water depletion.
• Big data analytics can mitigate sustainability challenges by tracking visitor behavior in real time, managing destination load capacity, and monitoring long-term environmental trends using diverse datasets from mobile devices, sensors, and digital transactions.
• Türkiye's readiness for big data implementation is hindered by a digital divide, with significant gaps in ICT access based on income and region, and a lack of advanced digital skills among the population.
• Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Türkiye's T&T sector show low digital readiness, with only 9.2% using e-commerce and 11.2% using cloud computing, limiting their ability to contribute to or benefit from big data initiatives.
• The Turkish government is implementing the 2028 Tourism Master Plan and the Türkiye Sustainable Tourism Programme, the latter of which aims for all 22,000 accommodation facilities to meet 100% of GSTC sustainability standards by 2030.

APA

World Economic Forum (2023). Driving Türkiye’s Travel and Tourism Development. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Driving_Turkiyes_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_2023.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Driving Türkiye’s Travel and Tourism Development. 2023. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Driving_Turkiyes_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_2023.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Driving Türkiye’s Travel and Tourism Development |date=September 2023 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Driving_Turkiyes_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_2023.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2023driving, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Driving Türkiye’s Travel and Tourism Development}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2023}, month = sep, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Driving_Turkiyes_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_2023.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }