Over 1 mln people travel to Greek islands from Turkish ports
ISTANBUL
Last year, 1.15 million passengers traveled to the Greek islands from the ports on Türkiye’s Aegean coast, according to data from the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry.
The number of people traveling to the Greek islands in 2024 increased by 93 percent compared to the previous year, spurred by the visa-on-arrival scheme Greece granted for Turkish citizens visiting the islands.
In 2023, 805,000 people and in 2022, 416,000 people traveled to Greek islands from Türkiye.
Ships arriving and departing from the Turkish ports of Bodrum, Çeşme, Ayvalık, Kuşadası, Marmaris, Fethiye, Kaş and İzmir to the Greek islands made a total of 17,288 voyages, showed the ministry data.
The number of arriving and departing passengers on these voyages was 2.3 million.
From Türkiye, 8,629 ship voyages carried 1.15 million passengers to the Greek islands of Kos, Leros, Kalymnos, Symi, Rhodes, Patmos, Chios, Samos, Lesbos and Meis.
Visits to the Greek islands peaked in August last year at 296,980 travelers. This was 236,000 in July and 208,000 in September.
Kos Island was the top choice of Turkish travelers last year.
From Bodrum, 340,303 passengers, and from Kuşadası, 2,493 passengers visited Kos.
Following Kos, Rhodes was the second favored destination of Turkish tourists.
Some 2,015 passengers from Bodrum, 184,665 passengers from Marmaris and 48,409 passengers from Fethiye traveled to Rhodes.
As for Chios Island, 195,618 passengers traveled there from Çeşme.
The data also showed that the number of passengers traveling on international routes to other countries reached 1.36 million last year.
Of those passengers, 85 percent traveled to Greek islands. Last year, 185,892 passengers traveled Northern Cyprus, 6,467 to Russia, 5,823 to Lebanon and 4,645 to Romania.
