TURKISH tourism players want to host 1 million Chinese travelers in 2018, which has been declared “Turkey Tourism Year” in China, within the framework of the “One Belt One Road” project.

The head of Wanda Real Beijing, which is owned by China’s Wanda Group, Fuat Köroğlu, told state-run Anadolu Agency said that the declaration of 2018 by China as “Turkey Year” would create significant opportunities for the sector.

“The main problem of Turkey has unfortunately been wrong marketing policies. In order to evaluate this key opportunity, a comprehensive marketing and PR plan must be immediately prepared. The Chinese market is a very big and ready market,” Köroğlu said.

Marketing and PR work must be carried out to appeal to Chinese TV, he added.

Meanwhile foreign visitors coming to Turkey for healthcare tourism are reported to spend almost 10 times more than those who come for vacation, according to the Association of Health Strategies and Social Policies (SASOMER).

Turkey has been trying to capitalize on its health tourism potential and around 1.1 million people visit Turkey for this purpose, SASOMER Chair Turan Buzgan said.

The health tourism sector consists of three subgroups, namely, “medical tourism,” “tourism for the senior and handicapped,” and “thermal tourism,” Buzgan said. He highlighted that Turkey is open to improvement in these three areas.

He revealed that visitors who come for health tourism spend less money but get better quality health services in Turkey compared to other countries.

According to the information provided by the SASOMER chair, Turkey obtains revenue of $2.3-3 billion from health tourism and the country is predicted to raise this figure to around $5 billion by 2020.