Buoyant arrivals of foreigners in the first month of 2023 have helped Türkiye surpass pre-COVID-19 levels, official data showed Friday, making an encouraging start to the new year.
Marking a complete rebound from a pandemic fallout, foreign arrivals neared record and all-time high revenues in 2022 and prompted the government to raise its tourism estimates for this year.
The number of foreign visitors arriving in January jumped 56.51% from a year earlier to 2 million, the Culture and Tourism Ministry said Friday.
The arrivals compared with 1.28 million foreign visitors in January 2022, 509,787 in January 2021 and the record 1.8 million in 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic in the country.
Visitors from Russia, Bulgaria and Germany, with a combined 587,000 people, topped the list of foreigners who visited Türkiye in January, according to the data.
Russians led the way with over 279,818 arrivals, double compared to a year ago. Bulgaria followed with 167,138 visitors (up 52% year-over-year), Germany with 139,955 (up 36.4%), and Georgia with 114,508 (up 190.4%).
Istanbul, Türkiye’s largest city by population and a top tourist hub, welcomed 59.3% of all foreign visitors, or 1.19 million.
Edirne province on the northwestern border with both Bulgaria and Greece ranked second with a 12.1% share, or 242,615 visitors. The resort city Antalya sits third with 9.1%, or more than 183,338 tourists.
Foreign visitors surged 80.33% year-over-year to 44.6 million in 2022, just shy of the peak of 45.1 million in 2019. The figure compared to the 24.71 million arrivals in 2021 and 12.73 million in 2020.
Tourism revenues jumped 53.4% to a record $46.3 billion last year, blowing past the previous high of $38.4 billion in 2019 before the pandemic hit. The figure stood at $30.2 billion in 2021 after the outbreak more than halved it to just $14.8 billion in 2020.
Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy has said foreign arrivals are expected to reach 60 million in 2023, before hitting 90 million in 2028. For the income, the government sees it rising to $56 billion this year and $100 billion five years from now.
COVID-19 restrictions all but dissipated in 2022 and Russians came in droves partly due to flight restrictions imposed by Western nations over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are also estimated to have moved last year to Türkiye, seen as a safe haven for investment in homes and other assets.
Arrivals were also backed by a surging demand from European countries, spearheaded by Germany and the United Kingdom.
The foreign exchange it brings in makes tourism income vital to Türkiye’s economy, as the government’s new economic program focuses on flipping the current account deficits to a surplus, prioritizing exports, production and investments while curbing rising inflation.