Turkiye welcomed 49 million foreign tourists in 2023

Turkiye attracts 49M foreign tourists in 2023

Türkiye welcomed 49.2 million foreign tourists in 2023, hiking 10.4% from the previous year, according to the Culture and Tourism Ministry on Wednesday. The figure exceeded its pre-pandemic period level of 45 million in 2019, the ministry data showed.

Istanbul, Türkiye’s largest city by population, was the top tourist draw, attracting 17.4 million foreign visitors last year. The famed resort city of Antalya on the Turkish Riviera ranked second with 14.8 million foreign visitors in 2023.

The northwestern province of Edirne, which borders Bulgaria and Greece and the Aegean province of Mugla followed them with 4.7 million and 3.3 million, respectively.

Russians made up 12.8% of all foreign visitors or 6.3 million, rising 20.7% from the previous year.

Germans followed it at 6.2 million (up 9% annually), Britons at 3.8 million (up 12.8%), Bulgarians at 2.9 million (up 0.4%), and Iranians at 2.5 million (up 7.4%). Separate data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) showed that Türkiye’s tourism income surged 16.9% year-on-year to $54.3 billion in 2023.

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Source: Anadolu Agency