Over 5 million tourists visited Antalya this year

Antalya, the heartland of Turkey's tourism industry, has hosted more than 5 million foreign tourists so far this year - up 253 percent year on year.

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The developed hospitality sector in the Mediterranean province has implemented the Safe Tourism Certification Program successfully since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, a statement from the Provincial Culture and Tourism Directorate said on Aug. 28.

"The number of tourists arriving in the city of Antalya via airlines has exceeded 5 million," it said.

Some 1.43 million tourists visited Antalya between Jan. 1 and Aug. 27 last year.

In August this year, the number of tourists in Antalya reached 1.66 million, up 146 percent from 672,424 in August 2020.

Russian tourists topped the list of tourist source countries with a share of 34.6 percent. Ukrainian (20.6 percent), German (11.9 percent) and Polish (5.4 percent) tourists followed them.

Turkey hopes to host 25 million foreign visitors this year, according to the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

The world's sixth most popular destination in 2019 hosted more than 52 million visitors compared to other countries that year, including some 7 million Turks living abroad. Turkey raked in nearly $35 billion in tourism revenues in 2019.

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Due to pandemic-related travel restrictions last year, the number of foreign tourists dropped 69 percent to around 16 million and tourism revenues declined to $12 billion.

Turkey's tourism income stood at $2.4 billion in the first quarter of this year. In the second quarter, tourism revenues hit $3 billion, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).