Tourism boom in Turkey during 2018

Tourist inflow has been in a growth track for Turkey during 2018, as per data released by the tourism ministry. Around 40 million foreign tourists visited Turkey during the year, depicting an increase of 21 per cent when compared to the previous year.

Photo courtesy: Clueless Compass

The Turkish tourism industry has been recovering from the wave of terror attacks in 2015 and 2016, which seriously shattered the sector.

The total number of tourists visited turkey during 2018 was 46 million, including the foreign tourists counting around 40 million.

The last major terror attack to hit Turkey was during New Year celebrations in 2017 when a gunman killed 39 people at an elite Istanbul nightclub.

As per the data published by the Turkish Statistics Office (TUIK), income from tourism has increased by 12.3 per cent when compared to previous year, which earned revenue worth USD 29.5 billion in 2018

The total income generated from tourism, around 82 per cent was from foreign tourists and the balance from Turkish citizens living abroad

Russians become first among foreign tourists; around 6 million tourists came from Russia, citing an increase of 26.49 per cent when compared to 2017. Germans came second – 4.5 million tourists came from Germany during the period, which is 25.88 per cent more than the previous year.

Temple of Artemis

Temple of Artemis was the favourite tourist destination for the year 2018  – around 1.5 million people visited the site, which is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2015 and is the fifth most visited site in Turkey.