Nearly 8 million foreigners visit Turkey before summer season

ANKARA

Nearly 7.8 million foreigners visited Turkey in the first four months of 2018, the Culture and Tourism Ministry announced on May 31.

The ministry said the figure rose by 32.55 percent on a yearly basis, up from 5.87 million in January-April last year.

Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city by population and one of its top tourist draws, saw the highest number of visitors, with nearly 3.9 million in the four-month period.

The Mediterranean resort city Antalya came in second, with 1.06 million foreign visitors.

As for the nationalities of foreign visitors, Iran took first place with 11.02 percent - some 860,000 visitors - over the same period, followed by Germany (8.63 percent) and Georgia (8.37 percent). 

Official data showed that air was the preferred means of transport, with 8.23 million travelers, while 3.5 million used roads and around 235,000 came by sea.

In April, 2.65 million foreigners also visited the country, up 28.27 percent from April 2017.

Turkey expects 40 million tourists from abroad this year, according to private sector representatives and officials.

Turkey’s tourism revenue rose 31.3 percent in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period of 2017 and hit $4.43 billion, official data showed late in April.