Foreign tourist arrivals to Türkiye rise 3.8% in October

By Tuba Ongun

ANKARA (AA) – Türkiye attracted nearly 5 million foreign visitors in October, a hike of 3.8% from a year earlier, according to official data released on Friday.

The figure overtook its pre-pandemic level of 4.3 million foreign tourists in October 2019.

The famed resort city of Antalya on the Turkish Riviera recorded the greatest number of visitors with 1.8 million last month, the Culture and Tourism Ministry figures showed.

Istanbul, Türkiye's largest city by population, saw 1.6 million foreign tourist arrivals in October.

The Aegean province of Mugla and the northwestern province of Edirne, which borders both Bulgaria and Greece, followed with 386,811 and 372,341 foreign visitors, respectively.

Germany took the first place by its share of 17.3% – some 860,635 Germans – with regards to nationalities of foreign visitors over the same period, followed by Russia (13.5%) and the UK (8.9%).

- Foreign tourist arrivals see 11.6% annual rise in 10 months

In January-October, foreign tourist arrivals in Türkiye soared 11.6% year-on-year to 44.2 million.

Russia made up the largest chunk of foreign visitors in the ten-month period with 5.8 million arrivals.

They were followed by Germans with 5.7 million visitors and Britons with 3.6 million.

Istanbul welcomed 33.4% of all foreign visitors, or 14.8 million from January to October. Antalya claimed the second place with 32% or 14.1 million tourists. Edirne followed it with a 9.1% share or 4 million visitors.