5.7 million foreign visitors travel to Turkey in October

According to recent data released by Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Minister, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, almost 5.7 million foreign tourists travelled to Turkey during the month of October 2025 – signalling the start of a busy year-end season.

Turkey’s continued tourism appeal

Ersoy revealed on social media that a total of 5.68 million foreign tourists had arrived in Turkey during the month of October. This was an increase of 4.3% when compared to the same month in 2024.

The data showed that tourists from Germany and Russia remained the two most popular foreign arrivals, followed by visitors from the United Kingdom. Arrivals from Germany increased by 6.2%, while visitors from Russia increased by 11.4%.

55 million total visitors from January to October

Ersoy noted that the total number of visitors to Turkey from January to October reached 55.6 million people. This number includes Turkish citizens who live abroad and come home to visit family. The total number of foreign arrivals during the first ten months of the year stood at 47.2 million people.

As expected, Istanbul remained Turkey’s most popular city and tourist destination with 16 million foreign visitors arriving to Istanbul from January to October – representing 33.9% of all foreign arrivals.

Following Istanbul was the busy Mediterranean city of Antalya in second place, and the north-western city of Edirne – bordering Bulgaria and Greece – in third place by number of total foreign arrivals.

Turkey aiming for 65 million visitors in 2025

At the start of the year, The Turkish government unveiled goals including attracting 65 million total visitors during the year. In 2024, the country welcomed 62.3 million visitors, including Turkish nationals living abroad. That number stood at 52.6 million when considering foreign arrivals only.

According to data, Turkey is currently the fourth-most visited nation in the world with the tourism industry contributing up to 10% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and being responsible for 5% of total employment in the country. Tourism income reached $61.1 billion USD in 2024 and stands at $50 billion USD after the first nine months of 2025.