Antalya welcomes over 13 million foreign tourists

ANKARA

Antalya, Türkiye’s popular holiday destination, has attracted 13.1 million foreign tourists in the first 11 months of 2022, a robust 48 percent increase from the same period of last year.

January-November numbers for Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast, were above that of 2019, when the Turkish tourism sector saw a record number of foreign tourist arrivals.

“The final quarter [of 2022] is going very well. We can call it the “golden fall,’” said Recep Yavuz from the Tourism Working Group at the Antalya City Council.

Hotels in all major holiday destinations in the Mediterranean basin, except for the Canary Islands and Majorca, ended the tourism season, but hotels in Antalya remain open, he added.

“Throughout November, Antalya was in the top two in terms of daily tourist arrivals, competing with the Canary Islands and Majorca, claiming the first spot in most of last month. We are expecting Antalya to take over Majorca this year.”

Yavuz noted that Majorca has received between 11 million to 12 million tourists, whereas Antalya welcomed more than 13 million foreign visitors.

When the final figures are revealed, Antalya will probably be on the top of the list hosting the largest number of foreign tourists, he said.

He added that Europeans are coming to Antalya not because of the energy crisis in the continent. “Those are regular tourists on regular vacation.”

Some 94,000 Germans visited the province in November 2021, but last month Antalya hosted 94,564 German tourists, according to Yavuz. The number of Russian tourists reached 126,000, which was above the 2019 level, he said.

Data from the provincial directorate of culture and tourism showed that Russians accounted for 23.5 percent of all foreign tourist arrivals in the first 11 months of the year, followed by Germans at 22 percent. Britons ranked third at around 9 percent and Polish tourists at 6 percent.

The occupancy rates in hotels in Antalya increased by 20 percent compared with the previous year, said Ersin Yazıcı, the city’s governor.

Not only Antalya but Türkiye’s large tourism industry as a whole has been enjoying the revival in tourism activity this year.

From January to October, more than 45 million tourists visited the country, a figure close to 46 million visitors Türkiye attracted in the same period of 2019.

In the first 10 months of 2022, foreign tourist arrivals increased by 88 percent from a year ago to 39.6 million. Including Turkish citizens residing abroad, the number of visitors stood at more than 45 million.

In the face of the rebound in tourism activity, Türkiye revised upwards its tourist and tourism revenue targets for 2022 to 50 million and $44 billion, respectively.