Tourist arrivals in Antalya top 9 million in seven months

Tourist arrivals by air in Antalya, a major holiday destination on the Mediterranean coast, increased by 10 percent year-on-year in the first seven months of 2024, exceeding 9 million.

Russians constituted the largest group of foreign tourists with 2 million, followed by Germans at 1.77 million. Britons ranked third at 874,356, according to data from the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism.

Of those holidaymakers, 8.5 million were foreign nationals. Some 562,000 of the visitors were Turkish residing abroad, up more than 10 percent compared with the January-July period of 2023.

In the first half of 2024, Germans overtook Russians as the largest group of visitors. But in July, arrivals from Germany declined mainly due to the Euro 2024. Russian tourists increased by 10 percent in the January-July period from a year ago, accounting for 24 percent of all foreign arrivals in Antalya.

The year-on-year increases in the number of German and British holidaymakers were 8 percent and 22 percent, respectively.

Arrivals from Poland rose by 23.7 percent to 683,000, with Poles constituting the fourth largest group of foreign tourists.

Some 270,000 Dutch tourists vacationed in Antalya in this period, marking an 11 percent increase from a year earlier.

In June alone, Antalya welcomed 2.7 million visitors from foreign countries, a 2.7 percent increase compared with the same month of 2023.