Turkey seeking to welcome 1.5M Ukrainian tourists in 2021

Turkey is looking to welcome a total of 1.5 million Ukrainian citizens in 2021, said a top official of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TURSAB) on Thursday.

"In the pre-pandemic period, we made a total of 21,700 trips to Ukraine, which ranks seventh in international travel destinations for Turkish citizens," said Ali Bilir, deputy chairman of TURSAB, at an event in Istanbul.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, a total of 1 million Ukrainian tourists visited Turkey last year, he added.

Ukraine and Turkey have developed friendly relations in different fields in recent years, yet tourism constitutes an important area of cooperation, he said.

Noting the benefits of passport-free travel between the two countries, he said this has increased tourism on both sides.

In order to strengthen economic and humanitarian ties, passport-free travel between Turkey and Ukraine commenced in June 2017.