Foreign tourist arrivals by air in Antalya leaped 48 percent in the January-April period from a year ago, official data have shown.
From January to April, 1.8 million foreign holidaymakers arrived in the city, which is located on the Mediterranean coast.
That marked the all-time-high January-April figure ever, raising hopes that Antalya may welcome a record number of foreign tourists this year.
In January-April 2019, the number of foreign tourists arriving by air stood at 1.6 million but dropped to 509,000 in the same period of the following year.
In the first four months of 2021, tourist visits plunged to a little more than 445,000 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But in 2022, Antalya fast recovered from the fallout of adverse effects of the pandemic as COVID-19-related travel restrictions were largely removed and the pandemic outlook improved in Türkiye and globally. In the first four months of last year, 1.22 million foreign tourists arrived in the popular holiday destination by air.
The city’s tourism industry also made a good start to 2023, welcoming a record number of visitors in January, February and March.
Nearly 447,000 Germans arrived in Antalya between Jan. 1 and April 30, according to data from the provincial directorate of culture and tourism.
Russians constituted the second largest group of foreign holidaymakers, as 393,000 Russian nationals arrived in the city in the first four months this year.
In the same period, Antalya welcomed around 202,000 British visitors, followed by Dutch, Polish, Israelis, Lithuanians, Iranians, Belgians and Kazakhs.
In 2022, 13.4 million foreign holidaymakers arrived in Antalya by air, marking the second-highest figure on record after 2019’s 15.6 million.
The latest data from the Culture and Tourism Ministry showed that more than 6.2 million foreign tourists visited Türkiye in the first quarter of 2023, pointing to a robust 26.7 percent increase from a year ago.
In March alone, tourist arrivals grew 12 percent from the same month of 2022 to 2.34 million. In January and February, foreign tourist visits increased by 57 percent and 21 percent to 2 million and 1.9 million, respectively.
In line with the increases in foreign tourist visits, Türkiye boosted its tourism revenues in January-March. The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) reported last week that tourism revenues grew 32.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to $8.69 billion.
Türkiye aims to attract at least 60 million foreign tourists this year, while its tourism revenue target for 2023 is $56 billion.
