Large numbers of tourists from Russia, Germany, Bulgaria, Iran and the UK have helped to contribute to an increase of just over 27% of foreign arrivals into Turkiye when compared to 2022, with 9.53 million visitors in total to Turkiye between January and April of this year.
Official data released by the Culture and Tourism Ministry revealed that Istanbul welcomed over half of all visitors so in the region of 4.77m, followed by Antalya with 1.6m. The figures also show that 1.15m Russians arrived, closely followed by just over 966,000 Germans, then Bulgaria with just over 797,000. Compared with a year ago that demonstrates a 135% increase for Russia, an 18% increase for Germany and a 17% increase for Bulgaria.
The month of April had the largest number of visitors with 3.3m tourists beating pre-pandemic levels of 3.29m in the same month of 2019. Tourist revenues also far exceeded the $38.4bn generated in 2019, with a total of $46.3bn in 2022, attributing to around 10% of Türkiye’s total GDP.
Tourist numbers have been steadily rising since the pandemic, with 2019 levels reaching a high of 45.1m, with 12.73m in 2020, 24.71m in 2021 and 44.6m in 2022. The hope for the government is that 60m tourists will visit in 2023 with the goal of reaching 90m by 2028.
