Citizens living abroad as a market: selling summer stays to visitors from the diaspora

Citizens resident abroad are Turkish citizens who live outside Türkiye; TÜİK counted 11,175,394 of them among 63,917,057 departing visitors in 2025, 17.5% of the total (TÜİK, Tourism Statistics 2025, 30 January 2026). Sell to them by owning the weeks their school holidays create, reaching them in Turkish through the channels they already use, and stating currency and cancellation terms plainly.

Every August the same families arrive from the same towns in Europe, and every June the hotel wonders where they went. The bookings were made months earlier, in Turkish, often through an agency in the town where they live. This article treats citizens living abroad as a sales question: which weeks to watch in your own records, which channels reach them, in which language, and what you can honestly promise on price. Selling hotels to citizens living abroad starts with knowing that this group is counted, large, and invisible in most hotel reports.

Who counts as a citizen living abroad in Türkiye's visitor numbers?#

They are Turkish citizens who live outside Türkiye, and TÜİK counts them inside the departing-visitor total, separately from foreign visitors. In 2025, 11,175,394 of the 63,917,057 departing visitors fell into this group, 17.5% of the total, according to TÜİK's annual tourism statistics bulletin (30 January 2026) (opens in a new tab). The same bulletin put 2025 tourism revenue at USD 65.23 billion, 6.8% more than in 2024, but that revenue total is not split by citizenship.

Two rules follow from how the statistics are built. First, this group is not part of the foreign-visitor figure; the two sit in different columns of the same publication, so never add them together or describe citizens abroad as foreigners in a campaign. Second, the public data tells you how many came, not what they spent, where they stayed or how they booked. For a fuller picture of how these visitors sit inside the national totals, see our article on citizens resident abroad in Türkiye's tourism data.

The group is large enough to plan around and invisible in most hotel reports, because country of residence is rarely a required field at booking. A starting check: count last summer's reservations with a phone number or billing address outside Türkiye and a Turkish name. Treat the result as your own estimate, not a statistic.

Keep the Turkish term respectful. Write "yurt dışında yaşayan vatandaşlar" in copy; "gurbetçi" works in a campaign headline only if the hotel is comfortable with it; "Almancı" does not belong in written material.

When do they come, and why do the same weeks fill first?#

Their travel window is set by the school holidays of the country they live in, and where those overlap with Turkish demand, the weeks go first. School terms differ by country and, in federal countries such as Germany, by state, so two families from the same country can travel in different fortnights. The result is not one peak but several overlapping ones: the hotel sees a full August and a soft first week of July without knowing which guest produced which.

Read your own records before any market report: arrivals by week, country of residence, booking date, channel and length of stay. Two or three seasons of that is enough to see the pattern. Religious holidays move every year, so last season's dates are not next season's dates; rebuild the calendar rather than copying it. A hotel demand calendar for 2027 helps you lay the moving holidays against your own weeks.

Allotments and contracts with agencies abroad are usually signed months before the season, which means the decision is taken before the demand is visible in your bookings. The rule that follows: protect the weeks your diaspora guests fill before you discount them, and discount the weeks they never fill.

Which channels actually reach them?#

Four routes reach this group: agencies in the country they live in, airline packages, booking sites and direct contact, and each costs the hotel a different amount of control. Agencies abroad are often Turkish-run travel agencies in the towns where the community lives. They sell in the local language, book early and expect an allotment and a net rate; in exchange, the hotel gives up price control and part of its inventory.

Airline packages sell the flight and the room as one price and one confirmation. That is convenient for the guest, but the hotel becomes a line item and the relationship belongs to the airline. Booking sites capture the search, but the guest may search in Turkish or in the local language, so the listing has to work in both. Direct contact, by phone, messaging, email or the hotel's own site, carries the highest margin and is the only route where the hotel owns the relationship; it works best with guests who already know the property.

Count which of the four produced last season's diaspora bookings. That count is the cheapest piece of market research available. The trade-off is certainty against margin: agencies and airlines buy rooms in advance, direct bookings pay better but arrive later, and a short season usually needs both. For a wider view of matching channels to source markets, see selling by source market.

Which language should the offer be in?#

Turkish first, with the language of the country they live in available for the family members who do not read Turkish. The person booking is often a parent who reads Turkish comfortably; the confirmation is then read by a spouse, children or relatives who may not. Second and third generation guests may read the local language better than Turkish, and a campaign aimed only at their parents misses the person who will pay for the next stay.

Write Turkish that sounds written, not translated. Keep room types, board types and cancellation terms in one wording across every channel and every language, and use the hotel's own name and its room names consistently. A translated room name creates an argument at the desk that no one wins.

Put the second language where it matters: the confirmation, the directions, the check-in instructions and anything the guest reads on a phone. Never machine-translate a cancellation policy. A clause the guest cannot read is a clause the guest will dispute.

What can you promise on price, currency and installments?#

Promise only what you can charge: the currency, the moment the rate is fixed and the cancellation terms, stated before the guest pays. Costs are in lira and the guest often thinks in euro; the hotel decides which currency it charges in. Say which currency the card is charged in, and whether the lira amount is fixed at booking or calculated at arrival.

Installment offers differ between cards issued in Türkiye and cards issued abroad. Check with your bank what your virtual terminal actually supports before advertising installments. A guest who booked through an agency abroad is bound by that agency's terms; know what those terms are before you promise something different on your own site. Do not promise a rate you cannot hold: a currency clause the guest never saw is a complaint waiting for the first rate movement. For the underlying pricing logic, see our article on pricing hotel rooms in Türkiye when costs are in lira.

What offer fits a short stay between family visits?#

Sell the stay as a short add-on at one end of a family visit, not as a two-week beach holiday. The purpose of the trip is usually the family; the hotel is one segment of it, for example a stay of a few nights placed before or after the visit. That changes the offer: flexible dates, a short minimum stay, late checkout, breakfast included, and a location on the route to or from the family's town.

Short stays cost more per night in housekeeping and laundry and produce less restaurant revenue, so price them for that, not as a fraction of a weekly rate. Midweek nights are the easiest to fill and the least contested by other hotels in the same resort. A guest who stays three nights this season and enjoys it is a candidate for a longer stay next season: capture the contact at check-in, with consent, and use it once.

Offer something before arrival that the guest can accept in one step, and put the accepted offer on the bill so the desk does not have to negotiate at checkout.

What to do next#

Start with your own records, not with the national total. Pull last season's arrivals by week and country of residence onto one sheet, mark the weeks this group filled, and take that sheet to the next revenue meeting. The market figure tells you the group is large; only your own bookings tell you which weeks, which channel and which offer belong to your hotel.