44.5 million foreign tourists arrived in Turkey in 2022

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism released the Border Statistics for December 2022.

According to the provisional data obtained from the General Directorate of Security and the Turkish Statistical Institute; The number of foreigners who visited Turkey in December 2022 increased by 26.79 percent over the same month of the previous year, reaching 2,399,441 people.

The number of foreign tourists who arrived in the country in the period January-December 2022 was 44 million 564 thousand 395. This figure lagged behind the period before the 2019 pandemic.

In the period January-December 2019, 45 million 58 thousand 286 foreign visitors arrived in Turkey.

THE GERMANS ARRIVED MORE IN 2022

In the list of countries that send the most visitors to Turkey in December 2022, Russia is the first with 11.98 percent (287,413), Bulgaria is the second with 10.86 percent (260,676), Germany is 8.24 percent (197 thousand 809) with third place.

Germany was followed by Iran and Georgia.

In the period January-December 2022, Germany is the first with 12.74 percent (5.6 million), Russia is the second with 11.74 percent (5.2 million), England (United Kingdom) is 7 percent, in the ranking of the countries that send the most visitors to Turkey ranked third with 0.56 (3.3 million).

Britain was followed by Bulgaria and Iran.

51.3 MILLION VISITORS

The number of visitors to Turkey in 2022 increased by 71.07 percent compared to 2021 and reached 51,387,513.

In the period January-December 2022, the number of foreign citizens residing in Turkey increased by 28.09 percent compared to the same period in 2021, reaching 6,823,118 people.

FLOW OF SAUDI TOURISTS TO TURKEY IN 2022

On the other hand, the data also revealed that there was an influx of Saudi tourists to Turkey in 2022.

While 866 Saudi tourists arrived in Turkey in December 2021, this number increased to 37,464 in December 2022.

While the number of Saudi tourists arriving in the country in the January-December 2021 period was 10,083, it increased to 497,914 in the January-December 2022 period.

The number of tourists began to increase after the lifting of the embargo on Turkey and the official visit of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, to Ankara in June.

TOURIST BALANCE OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE CLEAR

In addition, these data revealed the negative effect of the war in Ukraine on tourism. Turkey lost one of its biggest tourism markets due to the war.

While more than 2 million Ukrainian tourists came to Turkey in 2021, this number decreased by 67.2 percent in 2022 and fell to 675,467.

The number of Russians arriving in Turkey in 2022 increased by 11.4% to 5.2 million.