Turkey's tourism sector is undergoing diversifying changes with a new focus on the cultural richness of Anatolian cities, which officials with the Culture and Tourism Ministry say will add new dimensions to the tourism road map in culture, shopping and health, along with promotional activities.

The Culture and Tourism Ministry is giving the green light to a new road map for Turkey's tourism industry, which is now facing the most challenging season it has seen in the past decade. Broadening its market base and diversifying its range of products are just two of the goals set by the Ministry as they focus on promoting cultural diversity in a wide range of activities.

Representatives from the business world as well as leaders in the tourism industry, along with ministerial authorities, met with the Russian media during the Turkey-Russia Media Forum in Antalya where two sessions were held titled, "The Turkish Tourism's Perspective of Russia in the New Period" and "New Trade Opportunities between Turkey and Russia."

Speaking at the first session, Culture and Tourism Ministry's Promotional General Manager İrfan Ünal said that the ministry has conducted research in 13 cities across Turkey seeking ways to increase the number of Russian tourists who visit Turkey. The findings revealed that Turkey ranks first in the category of sun, sand and sea tourism while it is below desired levels in cultural, urban, shopping and medical tourism. Anatolian regional tourism also lags behind, with Ünal saying that "We [the Culture and Tourism Ministry] will intensify our promotional efforts in this area."

Stressing that the Russians made up 22 percent of all tourists who visited Antalya in 2015, ETS Group CEO Mehmet Ersoy stated this process helped both countries acknowledge each other's value. He added, "While we understand the value of Russian tourists, Russian tourists had an opportunity to compare services in other cities and countries with the ones in Antalya."

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin to celebrate Russia Day, the national holiday of the Russian Federation. The letter was considered to be an important step toward normalizing the broken ties between the two countries. Following this, in late June, Putin signed a decree lifting restrictions on Russian tour firms working in Turkey, as well as eliminating other sanctions including the ban on charter flights to Turkey.

However, since Turkish tourism did experience the effect of the decline in the number of Russian tourists through the decline in total revenue, the government sped up from the beginning of this year, working on projects to back the tourism sector as well as widening the scope in terms of attracting alternative markets and the variety of the sector by not remaining limited to seaside tourism.