Granat Travel

1. Turkey

Sunshine-soaked and with a glittering blue seaboard, Turkey’s glorious “turquoise” coast wouldn’t normally rank as a newly rising star. The 300-mile loop of coastline that unfurls like an iridescent ribbon between Marmaris and Antalya has long been a favourite for holiday-makers, with UK visitors in particular flocking to its picture-perfect fishing villages and chic little bougainvillea-laden resorts. But over the last couple of years, following a wave of terror attacks and political unrest, things have taken a well-documented nosedive. Between 2014 and 2016 Turkey’s visitor numbers slumped from 42 million to 25 million. And now? Maybe we’ve all simply had to accept that no country is guaranteed terror-proof. Maybe people have realised that the Syrian border is hundreds of miles from Turkey’s main tourist areas. Whatever the reason, tourism is back on the up, with the first half of 2017 showing a 28 per cent rise compared to the doldrums of 2016