Turkey’s tourism industry was a bright spot in a financially difficult year in 2018, with visitor numbers climbing 21.84 percent year on year, pro-government newspaper Daily Sabah reported on Friday.
The 39.5 million foreign tourists who visited in Turkey brought an income of $29.5 billion to the country’s tourist sector, an increase of 12.3 percent, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s figures showed.
Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said a total of 46.1 million tourists visited Turkey last year, 6.6 million of whom were Turkish citizens who reside abroad.
Ersoy said during his keynote speech at the 23rd Eastern Mediterranean International Tourism and Travel Exhibition in Istanbul that the Turkish government had revised its tourism targets for 2023 to 70 million tourists and an income of $70 billion, Daily Sabah reported.
The largest share at 13.4 million foreign tourists visited Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, while the resort city of Antalya on Turkey’s southern coast received 12.4 million foreign tourists.
At 5.96 visitors, the largest number of foreign tourists came from Russia last year, followed by Germany, Bulgaria, and the United Kingdom.
The influx of tourists will have provided a vital boost to local economies in Turkey, during a year of economic problems caused by high inflation and lira devaluation.
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