Over 14 million foreign tourists visited Türkiye in 5 months

Foreign tourist arrivals in Türkiye increased nearly 24 percent in January-May from a year ago to more than 14 million, the Tourism and Culture Ministry has said.

Including Turkish citizens residing abroad, the number of tourists visiting Türkiye stood at 15.6 million.

Russians constituted the largest group of foreign tourists, showed the data the ministry released on June 23.

In the first five months of 2023, nearly 1.8 million Russians vacationed in Türkiye, up from 854,000 in the same period of last year.

Some 1.6 million German holidaymakers visited the country, accounting for 11.3 percent of all foreign tourists, followed by Bulgarians at 1.06 million or 7.5 percent. In January-May last year, 1.3 million Germans vacationed in Türkiye. Bulgarians mostly travel to Türkiye's border provinces for shopping purposes.

Tourist arrivals from the U.K. increased from 810,000 people in the first five months of last year to more than 1 million this year. Iranians claimed the fifth spot in the foreign visitors' list at 794,000.

The number of Ukrainian tourists declined nearly 43 percent year-on-year in the January-May period to around 251,000, data also showed.

Istanbul was the favorite destination of foreign travelers. In the first five months of 2023, the mega city welcomed a total of 6.3 million foreigners. Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast, received 3.14 million foreign holidaymakers. In the same period, the northwestern province of Edirne hosted 1.5 million visitors.

In May alone, foreign tourist arrivals increased by 16 percent on an annual basis to 4.5 million. The year-on-year pace of growth in foreign tourist visits, however, slowed from 29 percent in April, according to the data.

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