Over 1 million Germans visited Antalya in 2022

ANTALYA – Demirören News Agency

More than 1 million Germans have visited the southern province of Antalya since the start of the year, over-taking Russians after five years.

Considering the bookings made for this month, with over half a million German tourists expected to arrive in July, over 1.5 million Germans will have arrived in Antalya in the first seven months of this year, according to Recep Yavuz, the head of the Antalya City Council Tourism Working Group.

“In the same period of 2019, which was the best year in tourism history of Türkiye, 1.33 million German tourists came to Antalya,” Yavuz said.

Yavuz also pointed out that they expect the number of German tourists to exceed 1.5 million in August, September, October and November.

“The total number of visitors is expected to soar to three million by the end of the year,” Yavuz said, reiterating that the highest number of German tourists hosted was in 2015, with 2.94 million people.

“The flow from Germany, which started in April, has risen with some states having taken summer vacation at the end of June,” he said.

While one third of Germans go on holiday in their own country, one third of them visit Mediterranean countries, according to Yavuz.

“Türkiye, Spain, Greece and Italy are the most preferred countries.”

“Families with children prefer Türkiye, while young people prefer Spain,” Yavuz said.

“The figures of German tourist arrivals, which had been in a regression period after the death of 13 Germans in the bomb attack in Istanbul in 2016, have returned to its old days after the pandemic lost its effect,” he said.

Germany, which had been the country that sends the most tourists to Antalya until 2016, lost the lead to Russia in 2017.

“However, it took over in 2022 once again as the Russia-Ukraine conflict has turned the scale.”

“Russia is in second place with 956,000 tourists as of July 12,” he added.