Turkey's booming drama industry captures hearts worldwide, boosts tourism

Hit series 'Establishment Osman' and 'Resurrection Ertuğrul' were shot in Turkey's biggest movie studio the Bozdağ Film studio.

Tourists wander through sets that recreate Ottoman and Byzantine-era castles, take selfies with actors in traditional Ottoman costumes and watch exciting horseback stunt performances in Istanbul.

The global popularity of Turkish TV dramas - or dizi in Turkish - has thrust the nation into the position of a leading exporter of TV series. A growing number of tourists like Finnish Riia Toivanen converged to the Istanbul-based studio.

"We watch movies and Netflix series with my mom. I like very much, for example (the shows) "Kara Para Ask,” and "Kara Sevda.” And I also have been watching Ottoman series. So, that's why we came here."

Visitors wander through sets that recreate Ottoman and Byzantine-era castles and take selfies with actors.

Some 8,000 miles across the globe in Villa Carlos Paz, in Argentina, 66-year-old retired schoolmaster Raquel Greco, watches an episode of a Turkish romantic comedy, surrounded by memorabilia from her once-in-a-lifetime trip to Istanbul where she visited landmarks she knew from years of watching Turkish shows.

Argentinian Raquel Greco visited Istanbul where landmarks she knew from years of watching Turkish shows are located.

"It was exciting!"

"I cannot express in words what I really felt at that moment. The truth is, it seemed like it was more than fulfilling a dream. It seemed like I was dreaming, that I couldn't believe I was living what I saw every day in the TV series," Greco added.

Between 2020 and 2023, the global demand for Turkish series increased by 184%, positioning Turkey as one of the biggest exporters of TV shows around the world, according to research company Parrot Analytics.

This has enhanced Turkey’s soft power.

"When you watch so intensely and with such demand, you become entrenched in the heart of popular culture, in any country," Dr. Deniz Gurgen Atalay, Assistant Professor of Film and TV at Bahcesehir University said.

"Therefore, it is not possible for a phenomenon that exists within the dynamics of popular culture to not emerge as soft power and not have a positive impact here during the process of establishing a reputation."

“We reach over 400 million viewers every night around the world,” said Izzet Pinto, CEO of Global Agency, which exports Turkish dramas to world markets.

“The soft power we create with Turkish dramas cannot be even compared to what could be done in politics."

Content from the US and Britain still reign supreme but the booming success of Korean content in recent years, other countries have been hoping to achieve a similar level of international acclaim.