How much does Antalya earn from tourism? Why official revenue figures stop at the national level

TÜİK publishes Türkiye's tourism revenue as one national figure, measured in US dollars from a survey of departing visitors at border gates. Its 30 October 2026 release has no province or regional breakdown. Province figures quoted in the news are statements by whoever made them, not TÜİK data. What exists by province is arrivals, nights and occupancy.

A chamber sits down to write its annual report and needs one line: what did Antalya earn from tourism last year. A search returns a dollar figure inside a news story, with no table behind it and no method to check. The honest answer is shorter and less satisfying than the headline. After reading this, you will know exactly what the official statistics contain, how to quote a figure you meet in the press, and how to describe a destination honestly without a revenue number.

What does TÜİK publish about tourism revenue, and at what level?#

TÜİK publishes tourism revenue for Türkiye as a whole, in US dollars, once a quarter. Its release of 30 October 2026 (No. 58144) contains no province or regional breakdown.

The release carries 15 statistical tables and 2 downloadable tables. They split revenue, expenditure and visitors by year, quarter, month, purpose of visit and type of spending. They show citizens resident abroad separately, and give outbound citizens' nights by accommodation type. The metadata of the release (opens in a new tab) states the geographic coverage of the Departing Visitors Statistics module as Türkiye, meaning all border gates where visitors leave. That is the level at which the estimate is made.

No NUTS breakdown appears anywhere in the tables. NUTS (İBBS in Turkish) is the statistical region classification used for regional comparisons in Türkiye and in the EU; if a province cut existed, it would appear there. The module also states that there is no microdata, so a researcher cannot take the survey records and re-cut them into provinces.

One small point of caution: the metadata contradicts itself. The Departing Visitors module says there is no online database for tourism statistics, while the Citizen Arrivals module in the same release lists one. Check the table list rather than that sentence. The series is quarterly and not seasonally adjusted, so one quarter is not a year, and four quarters should not be added to make a growth rate. For how the revenue number is built in the first place, see how Türkiye's tourism revenue is calculated and where it sits in the balance of payments.

Why doesn't the exit survey split spending by province?#

Because the survey is built to estimate one national total from interviews at the point of exit, and a departing visitor cannot be assigned to a single province.

The frame is passport records. Interviewers meet visitors face to face at border gates as they leave, and the results are supplemented by Interbank Card Center data and a Health Tourism Survey. A visitor who spends two weeks across three provinces leaves through one gate and reports one trip total. Splitting that total by province needs a rule the survey does not collect, such as nights per province and spend per night per province.

A province split would need a rule the survey does not collect, such as nights and spend per province. The sample is sized for a national estimate; a province estimate would need a sample designed for that province, with its own weighting and its own error margin. The series is not seasonally adjusted, and a 2024 revision recalculated it back to 2012, so years before 2012 are not comparable with the current series.

The practical consequence: a province revenue figure is a different measurement, not a slice of this one, and the two should never be placed in the same table without a note. For what the national figure itself contains, see what TÜİK's 2025 tourism revenue figure includes.

The province figures in the news: how should you quote them?#

Quote them as statements: who said it, when, and on what basis. Never present them as TÜİK data.

Name the speaker in the sentence: a minister, a governor, a provincial culture and tourism directorate, a chamber, an association or a consultancy. The speaker is the source, not the province. Name the basis if one is given: a survey of their own, nights multiplied by an average, a share of the national total, or nothing at all.

Write the attribution into the grammar. "X said on 12 March 2026 that ..." is a statement. "Antalya earned ..." is a measurement, and the second form turns a claim into a fact the speaker never established. If no method is stated, say so in the same sentence; a reader deserves to know that before they copy the number.

Two more rules. Do not convert lira to dollars, or dollars to lira, without the rate and the date the speaker used; the conversion is yours, not theirs. And do not add province figures together and compare the sum with the national total: they are measured differently, over different populations, and the gap will look like an error when it is not.

Why can't you multiply nights by spending per night?#

Because the per-night figure is a national average across all visitors, seasons and facility types, and a province's mix is not that average.

TÜİK's 2025 spend per visitor is USD 1,008 (Hürriyet Daily News, 30 January 2026, citing TÜİK), and the USD 100 per night figure for overnight visitors is reported by Bloomberg HT (30 January 2026). Both are national averages, not rates for any destination. That average blends long all-inclusive summer weeks, short city breaks, health visits and every facility class. A province's own mix pulls its true average away from the national one, in a direction the national average cannot tell you.

Package spending is recorded differently. KPMG Türkiye's "Turizm Sektörüne Bakış 2026" (page 6, citing TÜİK) puts package tours at 28.2% of 2025 spending, and a package price is not a per-night room rate. The nights you would multiply come from the Ministry's certified-facility bulletin, which counts İşletme- and Basit-certified facilities only, a different population from the departing visitors in the survey.

The arithmetic produces a precise-looking number with no error margin and no citable source. A reader cannot check it, and a lender or an auditor will not accept it. If a province estimate is genuinely needed, build or commission a method and publish the method beside the number, so the next reader can judge it. For the spending figures themselves, see how to read TÜİK's per-visitor spending figures.

What province-level tourism data does exist?#

The Ministry's yearly accommodation bulletin gives arrivals, overnight stays, average length of stay and occupancy rate by province and district, split into foreign and domestic guests.

The 2025 bulletin (opens in a new tab) reports Antalya at 30,763,631 arrivals, 111,340,634 overnight stays and 66.31% occupancy; İstanbul at 18,095,346, 40,105,289 and 53.50%; Muğla at 9,129,867, 24,669,490 and 49.99%; and Türkiye at 98,981,217, 252,323,483 and 49.54%. Coverage is İşletme- and Basit-certified facilities only. That is not the whole market, and these facilities should not all be called hotels.

The occupancy rate is the use of available bed capacity. It is not a room occupancy rate, and it must never be written as hotel occupancy. Arrivals here are facility arrivals: one traveler who stays in two certified facilities counts twice, so arrivals are not visitors and should not be compared with border arrivals. Separate sheets by facility type and class exist for Ankara, Antalya, Aydın, İstanbul, İzmir and Muğla, which lets you see the class mix behind a province total.

İşletme- and Basit-certified facilities, 2025; the occupancy rate is bed-capacity based. Source: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, certified accommodation statistics, 2025 yearly bulletin. For a fuller map of what exists, see province-level tourism data in Türkiye and how to read it.

How do you describe a destination without a revenue figure?#

Describe volume, mix, seasonality and length of stay, and say plainly that revenue is not published at province level.

Lead with arrivals and overnight stays, and state the population in the same breath: certified facilities, foreign and domestic split. Use average length of stay to show whether the province is a short-break or a long-stay market. It explains why nights and arrivals move apart, and it is a fact, not an estimate.

Use the class sheet to show what kind of capacity the province has. A destination of large resorts and a destination of small pensions can post the same arrivals with very different economics. Say what you cannot say, in one sentence, so no reader assumes the gap is your oversight.

For a hotel's own figures, such as its average room rate or its revenue per available room, use the hotel's own system and label them as the hotel's own. There is no official national or provincial average room rate series to compare against, as explained in why Türkiye has no official average daily rate series. Do not rank provinces by a revenue figure you do not have. If a ranking is needed, rank by overnight stays and say that is what you ranked.

A sentence you can put in a report#

Use two sentences, one per publisher, so a reader can see which number comes from where.

First sentence, national: "Türkiye's tourism revenue was USD 65.23 billion in 2025, up 6.8% (TÜİK, Tourism Statistics 2025, 30 January 2026)." Second sentence, province: "Revenue is not published by province, so this report describes Antalya through arrivals, overnight stays and occupancy (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, certified accommodation statistics, 2025 yearly bulletin)."

If you add a statement figure from a speech or a press release, give it a third sentence of its own, with the speaker and the date, and mark it as a statement. Keep the source line attached to the number it belongs to; a source list at the end of a report is where attributions go to die.

What to do next#

Before a province revenue figure goes into your next report, ask three questions: who said it, on what basis, and over what period. If you cannot answer all three, drop the figure and use the Ministry's arrivals, overnight stays and occupancy series instead, with its source line attached. The national revenue number and the province volume numbers are both solid; the mistake is only in pretending one can be turned into the other.