ANKARA - "We aim at making Turkey one of symbolic countries of development, progress and cultural rapprochement," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.
Speaking at the Anadolu Health Tourism Summit hosted by Ankara Governor's Office, Prime Minister Erdogan said, "as you know, the eastern city of Erzurum will host the Winter Universiade Games in 2011. This event will make a significant contribution to promotion of Turkey worldwide."
"We attach great importance to health and thermal tourism. Turkey takes place among the first seven countries having the richest geothermal resources. One of our targets is to make Turkey the biggest destination in thermal tourism," he said.
"Number of foreign people who come to Turkey to receive medical treatment increases considerably in parallel with the rise in the number of hospitals and health centers in Turkey. Our government is determined to encourage the private sector to invest in health," Erdogan stressed.
Stating that Turkish government worked hard to boost the tourism sector, he indicated that Turkey ranked the ninth among countries attracting the greatest number of tourists in 2005.
Erdogan said, "we aim to increase the number of beds (in hotels in Turkey) which amounted to nearly 1 million in 2006 to 1.5 million by 2013. We are also working to attract more foreign tourists to Turkey. We expect that the number of tourists visiting Turkey will increase to nearly 40 million a year by 2013."
"We will also exert great efforts to rise Turkey's income from the tourism sector to 50 billion U.S. dollars," Erdogan stressed.