tourism?

Turkey ranked 11th in terms of tourist arrivals and ninth in tourism revenues among the worlds' top 20 tourism destinations, the State Planning Organization (DPT) said.

The country, which hosted 722,000 tourists in January 2007, attracted 727,000 tourists in the same month this year, according to DPT data.

Despite the stagnation in tourism in the first four months of the year, Turkey, which hosted 18.48 million tourists last year, is expected to be visited by approximately 23.2 million tourists by the end of the year. Some experts predict that the number of tourists will rise to 1.5 million as of May and may reach 3-3.5 million during this summer.

The number of visiting tourists, which stood at 377,000 in January 2003, reached 602,000 and 690,000 in the corresponding periods of 2004 and 2005. The total number of tourists to enter Turkey was 13.2 million in 2003, and 15.89 million in 2004. Some 18.15 million tourists visited the country in 2005, but the figure declined by 7.2 percent to 16.85 million in 2006.

The number of tourists who visited France was 79.1 million, while Spain hosted 58.5 million tourists and Italy attracted 41.1 people in one year, said the DPT. The total number of tourists visiting France, Spain and Italy reached 178.7 million.

Turkey earned $18.6 billion from tourism last year, according to the World Tourism Organization (WTO). For this year, tourism revenues are expected to total $19.5 billion.