Foreign tourist arrivals in Antalya rose 133 pct in June

ANTALYA

Foreign tourist arrivals in Antalya, one of Türkiye’s major holiday destinations, increased by 133 percent in June from a year ago to nearly 1.9 million people, official data have shown.

Foreign tourist visits to the Mediterranean province have been rising steadily since the start of the year as countries eased travel restrictions after the COVID-19 outlook improved.

Between Jan. 1 and June 30, Antalya welcomed 4.3 million international holidaymakers, pointing to a robust 176 percent increase from the same period of last year, the provincial directorate of culture and tourism said.

The number of foreign tourists visiting the province more than doubled the number of visitors Antalya received in 2020 and 2021 combined, the authority noted.

Two years ago, 530,000 foreign tourists vacationed in the resort city, and in the whole of 2021, around 1.6 million people from foreign countries visited Antalya.

German nationals topped the list of foreign tourists. In the first six months of 2022, Antalya welcomed 955,000 Germans, followed by Russians at 786,000. From January to June, another 435,000 Britons visited Antalya, while Polish ranked fourth on the list at 238,000 people. Some 161,000 tourists from the Netherlands came to the province during this period.

Kazakhs, Israelis, Lithuanians, Romanians and Swedish were also on the top 10 visitors list.

The latest data from the Culture and Tourism Ministry showed that foreign tourist arrivals in Türkiye increased more than 207 percent in January-May from a year ago to a total of 11.3 million people.

In May alone, the country attracted 3.8 million foreign holidaymakers, up 308 percent from the same month of 2021.