Antalya welcomed 13.4 million tourists last year

Some 13.4 million foreign tourists arrived in Antalya by air last year, marking a 48 percent increase from 2021.

Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast, reached those numbers despite the fallout from the Russian-Ukraine conflict.

"Foreign tourist visits to the city last year surpassed the combined number of visitors in 2020 and 2021," Governor Ersin Yazıcı told Demirören News Agency, noting that in terms of arrivals by air 2022 was the second-best year after 2019, when Antalya hosted 15.64 million foreign holidaymakers.

Due to the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on global travel and tourism industries, 3.4 million foreigners visited Antalya in 2020 and a little more than 9 million in 2021.

"During the pandemic, we continued to welcome tourists in 2020 and 2021. The Safe Tourism Certificate program paid off this year [2022]," said Yazıcı.

Last month, the number of visitors climbed 52 percent from a year ago to nearly 228,000, which marked an all-time-high December figure, according to the governor.

In 2021, 1.5 million Ukrainians vacationed in Antalya but almost there were no tourist visits from Ukraine, due to the war this year, Yazıcı said.

Russians constituted the largest group of foreign visitors, accounting for 23.6 percent of all arrivals. Last year, 3 million Russians came to Antalya, according to the governor.

Some 2.8 million German nationals and 1.15 million Britons visited the city last year, followed by Polish at 765,000 and Dutch tourists at 443,000.

"Antalya attracted more tourists from the U.K., Germany, France and the Netherlands in 2022 than the previous years," Yazıcı said.

Antalya targets to lure 17 million foreign tourists in 2023, he added. "Our talks with hoteliers,...