Foreign visitors more than doubled last month

ANKARA

Foreign tourist arrivals in Turkey more than doubled in January compared to the same month of 2021, reaching almost 1.3 million, according to official data announced on Feb. 21. 

The number of foreigners visiting the country was 1.28 million in January, which jumped 151 percent from the same month in 2021, according to the Culture and Tourism Ministry data.

Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city by population, was the primary point of border entry for foreigners last month, with 791,578 visitors coming in. It was followed by the northwestern province of Edirne with 148,016 foreigners and the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya with 117,801 visitors.
Bulgarians have been flocking to Edirne for shopping purposes or holidays over the past couple of months.

Russians made up almost 10.5 percent of all visitors with 134,215. They were followed by visitors from Bulgaria and Iran, with 109,971 and 106,957, respectively.

Ahmet Bolat, the newly appointed Turkish Airlines chairperson and executive committee head, has said that the flag carrier is getting prepared for a record-setting summer season.

“With unique natural beauties and safe tourism standards, our touristic destinations have been attraction spots in the region. Demands for flights from all over the world continue to increase as the summer season nears,” he was quoted as saying in a company statement on Feb. 20.

Turkish Airlines is planning to organize direct flights from 38 international destinations to the airports in the Aegean and the Mediterranean regions (Antalya, Dalaman, Bodrum-Milas and İzmir), according to Bolat’s remarks.

AnadoluJet, the budget airline of the company, will fly from 39 foreign cities in the summer season and focus on the German, British and Lebanese markets.

Reservation demands from the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Israel and Lebanon are particularly high, according to local media reports.

Bolat was appointed to the helm of the company on Jan. 27. After joining Turkish Airlines in 2005 at the strategy development department, Bolat had been the chief investment and technology officer at the company since 2012.
Turkey’s flag carrier Turkish Airlines, established in 1933, flies to 334 worldwide destinations in 128 countries with a fleet of 373 aircraft.

In 2019, when the Turkish tourism industry recorded all-time-high figures, Turkish Airlines flew from 30 destinations to airports serving the tourism hotspots. That year Turkey welcomed 45 million foreign tourists.

In 2020, when the pandemic struck the global travel and tourism industries, some 12.7 million international holidaymakers visited the country.

“Last year, the number of foreign tourists increased by 88 percent from 2020 to more than 30 million people, while tourism revenues leaped 103 percent to stand at $24.5 billion,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said on Feb. 9.
“Early reservations increased compared with last year. All those indicate our target of generating $35 billion in revenues is well within reach,” the minister said.