It was revealed yesterday that the number of international visitors who visited Turkey in the month of December increased to more than 1.5 million, according to official figures. February saw a total of 1.54 million foreign visitors, representing a rise of 186.5 percent over the previous month.
According to the figures released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the previous month established a new record for the country’s tourism industry. With 956,482 tourists, Istanbul was the most popular port of entry for foreigners in the month of December.
Those numbers were followed by the northern border region of Edirne, which is a favorite location for daily travels by Bulgarians and received 181,665 foreign visitors, and the Mediterranean resort province of Antalya, which attracted 131,960 foreign visitors.
Germans and Bulgarians each accounted for nearly 128,000 visits, accounting for more than 8.3 percent of all visitors each. Visitors from Iran ranked second with 120,475, followed by Americans.
Due to the possibility that the conflict in Ukraine would have an influence on the country’s tourist business, Turkey’s hoteliers are keeping a careful eye on the situation. Turkey welcomed 4.6 million Russians and 2 million Ukrainians on holiday last year, representing the top and third biggest groups of international tourists, respectively.
This year, it is estimated that over 9 million Russian and Ukrainian visitors would visit Turkey. Even though the conflict is finished, we may not have as many visitors as we had planned for this year, despite the fact that the war is gone.
“However, at least 4.5 million to 5 million individuals from Russia and Ukraine are expected to go to Turkey this year,” Firuz Balkaya, the chairman of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TÜRSAB), recently said at a press conference.
The Turkish tourism industry attracted 45 million international visitors in 2019, just before the COVID-19 epidemic devastated the global travel industry. In 2020, over 12.7 million foreign tourists are expected to visit the country. The number of international visitors climbed by 88 percent between 2020 and last year, reaching more than 30 million people, while tourism profits increased by 103 percent to $24.5 billion, according to the World Tourism Organization.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism set a goal of producing $35 billion in total revenues by the end of 2022 at the beginning of the year.