Cruise ship passenger traffic up 10 percent in four months

ISTANBUL

Cruise ships brought more than 135,000 holidaymakers to Turkish ports in the first four months of 2024, marking a 10 percent increase from a year ago.

In January-April last year, around 123,000 cruise ship passengers visited the country’s ports.

The cruise ship traffic at Turkish ports rose 5 percent in the first four months this year to 123, data from the Transport Ministry showed.

The port of Kuşadası on the Aegean coast was the busiest as it received 67 ships with 82,000 passengers.

Some 23 cruise ships with more than 26,000 travelers visited Istanbul in the January-April period, making it the second busiest destination, followed by the port in the Aegean province of İzmir with 6 ships and some 8,000 passengers.

Last year, 1,192 cruise ships visited Türkiye’s ports with more than 1.5 million passengers.

Meanwhile, data from the provincial directorate of culture and tourism showed that foreign tourist arrivals in Istanbul surged 10 percent in the first four months of 2024 compared with the same period of 2023 to 5.24 million.

Russians constituted the largest group of international holidaymakers, according to data. From January to April, 167,800 Russian nationals visited Istanbul.

Germans and Iranians came second and third at 109,000 and 80,000, respectively.

Some 68,000 Americans and 62,000 French vacationed in Istanbul in the first four months of the year.

More than 1 million foreign tourists arrived at Istanbul Airport, while 395,000 holidaymakers entered the city through Sabiha Gökçen Airport.

In April alone the number of foreign tourists visiting the megacity grew 15 percent annually to 1.4 million.