Turkey top holiday destination for Germans

MUNCHEN

Nearly one out of five German travelers have chosen Tukey as their holiday destination over other countries for the upcoming tourism season, according to data from the online reservation platform HolidayCheck.

Some 18 percent of the bookings include destinations on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast for April and May, HolidayCheck said in a report. German holidaymakers are showing strong interest, particularly in the province of Antalya and the resort town of Side.

According to the Germany Travel Association (DRV), Turkey was the favorite destination for Germans in the autumn months of 2021.

From January to November in 2021, 2.9 million German nationals visited Turkey, accounting for nearly 13 percent of all foreign tourist arrivals in the country during this period, the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s latest data showed.

In the first 11 months of last year, the number of German tourists Turkey welcomed leaped over 170 percent on an annual basis from 1.07 million in January-November 2020.

In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world and disrupted global tourism and international travel, 4.8 million German nationals visited Turkey.

In November 2021 alone, 152,000 Germans vacationed in the country, marking a 341 percent increase from the same month of the previous year.

In January-November last year, Turkey hosted a total of 22.8 million foreign tourists, up from 12 million people from a year ago. In 2019, nearly 43 million foreign tourists visited Turkey.