(Yicai) April 23 -- Türkiye has seen a surge in tourism from China since it announced a visa-free policy for Chinese citizens in January.

China is now the most important source of emerging market tourists for Türkiye. The number of Chinese visitors to the country has jumped about 47 percent this year, according to Gökhan Yazgi, Türkiye’s deputy minister of culture and tourism, who recently visited China with a delegation.

Since the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, a large number of flights in the region have been cancelled or delayed, and some cruise operators have also cancelled voyages passing Dubai. While Türkiye, which straddles Europe and Asia, is outside the conflict zone, it has still been affected by the regional war.

“The situation in the Middle East is indeed tense, but Türkiye has always been safe and our lives have remained normal,” Ozge Nur, a tour guide in the country, told Yicai. Even so, some tourists believe the entire region is unsafe following the outbreak of the war, and this has had an impact on the country’s tourism market, Nur added.

The Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency has tried to offer reassurance, saying that tourism remains completely normal and that popular destinations in the country are still receiving visitors from Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region as usual.

Chinese services are available at some tourist attractions, restaurants and public facilities in Türkiye, and there are also Chinese restaurants on some of the main commercial streets in Istanbul, Yicai found.

Tourists who had planned to travel to the Middle East or via the region to other places for the upcoming May holiday have been considering other options, but Türkiye, as well as parts of Central Asia and the Transcaucasia region are still popular choices, said Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Spring Tour.

Türkiye received 64 million visitors and had tourism revenue of over USD65.2 billion last year, according to Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, minister of culture and tourism, and the hope is that revenue will reach USD68 billion this year.

Editor: Tom Litting