Turkey welcomes 39.5M foreign visitors in 2018

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

Turkey welcomed 39.5 million foreign visitors in 2018, the Culture and Tourism Ministry announced Thursday.

Last year, the number of foreign visitors rose by 21.84 percent year-on-year.

Istanbul, Turkey's world-famous touristic city, was the top destination with 13.4 million tourists, accounting for 34 percent of all foreign visitors.

The Mediterranean resort city of Antalya followed Istanbul with 12.4 million foreign visitors in 2018.

Last year, the most preferred means of transportation was airway with over 30 million foreign visitors.

Nearly 8.5 million and over 988,700 visitors used roadway/railway and seaway, respectively.

In 2018, Russia was the top country with 5.96 million visitors, accounting for 15.1 percent of all foreign visitors welcomed in Turkey.

Russia was followed by Germany (4.51 million visitors), Bulgaria (2.38 million visitors), the U.K. (2.25 million visitors), and Georgia (2.07 million visitors).