The number of foreign tourists visiting Turkiye’s popular holiday destination Antalya has already exceeded 1 million.
Antalya made a good start to 2023 in terms of tourism activity, and tourist inflow has been strong, Governor Ersin Yazıcı said.
“We had a record number of monthly arrivals in January, February, March and April. We reached the 1 million-visitor mark on April 23 last year. This year we saw this figure even at an earlier date,” he added.
More than 1 million foreign tourists visited Antalya as of April 9, Yazıcı said,noting that foreign tourist visits increased by 60 percent compared with April last year.
“We are expecting to meet the target of welcoming 17 million foreign tourists this year,” he said.
Russians top the list of foreign holidaymakers, according to the governor. “Russians accounted for 30 percent of all visitors. Germans came second at 24 percent, and Britons ranked third. Iranians, Poles, Israelis, Danish, Ukrainians and Dutch constituted the other largest group of visitors.”
“We are expecting more tourists from Europe and Israel this year. This will be a good tourism season. Expectations among local hoteliers are running high,” the governor added.
Antalya Airport welcomes more than 100 airplanes per day, arriving from foreign countries. “Work is underway at the airport. Its capacity will increase by 20 percent compared with last year,” Yazıcı said.
Turkiye aims to host 60 million foreign tourists and generate $56 billion in tourism revenues.
Last year, nearly 45 million foreigners vacationed in Turkiye, up from 24.7 million in 2021.
Russians accounted for 11.7 percent, or 5.2 million, of all foreign tourist arrivals, while Germans claimed the top spot at 5.7 million. Britons ranked third at 3.4 million.
In the first two months of 2023, foreign tourist arrivals increased by 37 percent year-on-year to 3.9 million. In the January-February period, more than 500,000 Russians visited the country, up from 246,000 a year ago.
The country’s tourism revenues also grew 53.4 percent in 2022 from 2021 to stand at $46.3 billion.
Earlier reports in local media said that around 7 million Russians are expected to visit Turkiye this year, as more flights are planned between the two countries for this summer season.
Some 171 flights from Russia to Turkiye will take place each day during this summer season.
The main destinations of the flights from Russia will be to Istanbul, Antalya, İzmir provinces and the resort towns of Bodrum and Dalaman.