Foreign visitors, tourism revenues continue to rise

ANKARA

The number of foreign visitors and Türkiye’s tourism revenues continued to increase, separate data showed on July 31.

Türkiye aims to draw 60 million visitors and generate $60 billion in tourism revenues this year.

Foreign tourist arrivals increased by 9.1 percent in June compared with the same month of last year to 6.8 million, the Culture and Tourism Ministry said.

Last month, more than 973,000 Turkish citizens residing abroad also vacationed in the country, a 43.6 percent year-on-year increase.

Russians topped the list of foreign holidaymakers in June. Nearly 871,000 Russian nationals visited Türkiye last month, accounting for 14.9 percent of all foreign tourist arrivals.

There was a 10 percent decline in German tourists to 615,000, while tourist arrivals from the U.K. rose 11 percent annually to 564,000.

The number of Polish tourists surged 21 percent from June 2023 to around 293,000.

Last month, Türkiye also welcomed some 275,000 Iranians, a 30 percent year-on-year increase.

Istanbul was foreign tourists’ most favored destination in the country. The megacity hosted 8.6 million visitors in June.

Antalya on the Mediterranean coast ranked second as it welcomed 5.9 million foreign tourists.

In the first half of 2024, foreign tourist arrivals increased by 13.9 percent year-on-year to 26.14 million.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) reported on July 31 that tourism revenues rose by 11.8 percent in the second quarter of 2024 from a year ago, reaching $14.88 billion.

This brought the country’s tourism revenues to $23.7 billion in the first half, rising 9.3 percent annually.

Individual expenditures constituted $10.3 of the total tourism income, while the share of package tour expenditures was $4.5 billion in the second quarter.

Around 15.9 percent of tourism income in April-June was obtained from Turkish citizens residing abroad, TÜİK said.

The average expenditure per capita was $924 in the second quarter, down from $951 in the same period of 2023.

The average expenditure per night declined slightly by 0.7 percent year-on-year to $101.

Tourism expenditure of Turkish citizens, who traveled abroad, fell 3.9 percent to $1.96 billion in the second quarter.

The number of Turkish citizens visiting abroad increased by 3 percent to 2.96 million, according to TÜİK.