Turkey hosts 14.5% More Tourists in January-May 2011

Published by Ozgur Tore

Thursday, 30 June 2011 16:40

The number of tourists visiting Turkey is increased by 14.56 percent in the first five months of this year compared to the same period of 2010.

According to the information received from Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, some 9.25 million tourists visited Turkey in the January-May period. The number of tourists visiting Turkey in May was 3.28 million, a 4.28 percent increase over the same month of 2010. Istanbul received the highest number of tourists in the first five months with 2.78 million, while the number of tourists visiting Antalya was 2.70 million.

Germany sent the highest number of tourists to Turkey in the January-May period of this year with 1.39 million, followed by Russia with 876,000 and Iran with 747,000 in the same period. The percentage of tourists visiting Turkey from the UK, Bulgaria, France, Georgia, the Netherlands, Syria and Greece increased by 6.5percent, 6 percent, 4.29 percent, 4.18 percent, 3.88 percent, 3.81 percent and 2.74 percent, respectively, compared to the first five months of 2010. However, Russia topped the list of the countries sending the highest number of tourists to Turkey in May of this year with 525,301. This figure was 340,373 in 2009 and 454,369 in 2010. Russia was followed by Germany (457,645), the UK (339,830), the Netherlands (158,893), Bulgaria (153,551), Iran (141,119), France (133,406), Georgia (101,146), Ukraine (87,349) and the US (85,745).

Currently, Turkey ranks seventh globally in terms of the number of incoming tourists it has and eighth in terms of tourism revenue it receives. According to figures provided by the Turkish Statistics Institute, Turkey’s tourism revenue exceeded $25 billion in 2010.

via Turkey hosts 14.5% More Tourists in January-May 2011.