Turkey's 3rd quarter tourism revenue totals $8.28bn

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish revenue from tourism fell sharply to $8.28 billion in the third quarter of the year, official figures showed on Monday.

Revenue fell 32.7 percent from the same period in the previous year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

Turkey welcomed nearly 12.1 million foreign visitors in the third quarter of this year, a decline of 5.3 million visitors from the same quarter in 2015.

The country’s total revenue from tourism was over $17.3 billion from January to September, $7.6 billion less compared to the same period last year.

Income from tourism is a valuable source of foreign currency for the country, constituting nearly 4 percent of national income last year with $31.5 billion.

TurkStat's report also showed that over 2.6 million of the visitors were Turkish citizens residing abroad.

"While 71.6 percent of this income [excluding GSM roaming and marina service expenditures] was obtained from foreign visitors, 28.4 percent was obtained from citizens residing abroad,” TurkStat said.

According to TurkStat, the number of Turkish citizens traveling abroad in the quarter fell by 13.1 percent over the last year and reached over 2.2 million.

Their average expenditure was $506 per capita for the quarter.

Nearly 41.6 million tourists came to Turkey last year. The country welcomed 41.4 million tourists in 2014. Just over half of the foreign visitors came from Europe, according to TurkStat.