Foreign arrivals to Turkey continue to increase

A strong recovery was sustained in November in the total number of visitors arriving to Turkey. This comes from official data published in December.

Rising tourists – a new trend

The Culture and Tourism Ministry have revealed that the arrivals of foreign nationals to Turkey has risen by 44.64% compared to a year previous, with a total of 2.55 million visitors in November 2022. This has been backed by a huge demand from European countries.

In November 2020, tourist figures were at 833,991, while in November 2021 they had grown to 1.76 million. Flight restrictions by Western countries on Russia has boosted the arrivals of travellers from Russia.

European demand for sun

A huge demand from Europe, with Germany and the United Kingdom at the forefront, has also helped to drive the major leap in travellers arriving to the country.

The government’s new economic program is focused on flipping the current deficit in the accounts into a surplus, while prioritising production, exports and investments. They are also trying to curb rising inflation, which makes Turkey’s tourism revenue vital to the economy.

Growing numbers on the arrivals list

Topping the list for arrivals was Russia, with 312,486 arrivals. Following this were Bulgaria with a total of 232,709 arrivals and Germany after this with 207,340 travellers arriving to Turkey.

Matching pre-pandemic, the figures for the period of January to November were up 84.77% to a total of 42.16 million compared with the same period of months in 2021.

The Culture and Tourism Ministry said that at 5.48 million, Germany topped the list for arrivals to the country during the period. This was followed by 4.95 million tourists who arrived from Russia and 3.3 million arrivals from the United Kingdom.

Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said earlier this month that they were expecting around 51.5 million tourists and a revenue of 46 billion USD, after the rebound prompted the government to revise the end-of-year tourism targets again.

The forecast for the year ahead

Forecasts for 2023 have also been increased already – Turkey is now expecting 60 million foreign arrivals to the country and a revenue of 56 billion USD.

Officials had shared their hopes that tourism this year could exceed or at least replicate the figures from 2019, which saw around 52 million visitors and brought in a revenue of 34 billion USD to the country.