Since this year is the first in which there’s been little or no restrictions on travel abroad, it’ll come as no surprise that Tourism is up in pretty much every major tourist destination. Turkiye is no different, and official stats show that a staggering 3,824,555 people visited the country in May, which is around a 300% increase on 2021.
Already this year (and we haven’t even hit the full tourist season yet) there was an increase of 207% for January to May equivalent to around 11.3m tourists in total. The top five regions for the increased numbers included Istanbul, Antalya, Edirne, Mugla and Artvin, so a good mixture of resort towns, capital cities and cultural/historical sites.
Germany, Bulgaria, Russia, The UK, and Iran all ‘sent’ huge numbers of tourists, with Germany claiming the top spot for both the first 4 months of the year, and for the month of May. German visitors increased by over 360% from January to April, and by over 420% for May. The UK had an increase of over 4000% and Russia had an increase of over 1700%.
Domestic Tourism has also increased, with many people who were confined to the larger cities during Covid, now able to travel again to the resort towns, and the hope is that Domestic Tourism will be able to partially make up for the reduction of Russian visitors due to the ongoing situation and restrictions with Ukraine. Korhan Alsan, who is the CEO of Nirvana Hotels mentioned recently in one interview that Antalya’s tourism performance is increasing day by day, and it can already be said that the domestic market, which is a very dynamic market, will break it’s biggest record ever this year’.
It’s advised, whether you are a ‘domestic tourist’ or an ‘international tourist’ that if you are going to book for later on this year or next year, then try to book as early as you can, as prices have already increased and there’s at least a 30% price difference between early and late booking.
