Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said the new Antalya Archaeology Museum will open in 2027, and set out the main points of a bill on foreign online accommodation platforms that is now before parliament, Anadolu Agency (AA) and Haber7 reported on Sunday.
According to AA, Ersoy was answering reporters’ questions in Antalya, where his ministry’s Culture Route Festival is taking place.
Antalya museum and Istanbul projects
Ersoy said the new Antalya Archaeology Museum is due to open in 2027. Haber7 and the Antalya newspaper Lider Haber, which also interviewed the minister, reported that the new building will have about twice the enclosed area and around three times the exhibition space of the current museum.
The minister also said the first phases of the Haydarpaşa and Sirkeci railway station projects in Istanbul are targeted for 2027, with the timetable affected by ground conditions at the sites, according to both reports. Restoration work and exploration of the underground areas of Hagia Sophia are continuing, the conversion of the former Diyarbakır Prison into a museum is due to be finished by the end of this year, and Türkiye now has agreements with 14 countries on the return of smuggled cultural property, he said.
Rules for foreign booking platforms
Under the bill being debated in the Grand National Assembly, foreign digital accommodation platforms would need a two-year, non-transferable permit costing 5 million lira and would have to appoint a representative in Türkiye, AA and Haber7 reported. For domestic sales, where both the buyer and the seller are in Türkiye, the total amount a platform can take would be capped at 17% of the sale price.
Spending per visitor rises
Ersoy said foreign visitors spent an average of $119.9 per night in the first nine months of 2026, while average nightly spending across all visitors rose 4.6% to $107.7. The average stay was 10.34 nights. He said he expected tourism revenue to exceed $65 billion this year if there are no major surprises. Quarterly revenue figures are covered in our article on Türkiye’s record third-quarter tourism income.
Sources
- Bakan Ersoy, 9 ayda kişi başı gecelik harcamanın 119,9 dolara ulaştığını açıkladı (AA via Haberler.com)
- Bakan Ersoy rakamları açıkladı! Türkiye Avrupa’ya örnek oldu! Ayasofya’da tarihi keşif (Haber7)
- Bakan Ersoy’dan Lider Haber’e özel açıklamalar! Antalya Müzesi, COP31 ve turizmde yeni dönem (Lider Haber)
Photo: Joe Wallace / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
