Antalya is going through what is said to be its best start to the year ever, as data showed Türkiye’s southern resort city welcomed a record number of foreign tourists arriving by air.

More than 2.1 million tourists landed in the Mediterranean gem between the first day of January and May 7, data by the provincial directorate of culture and tourism showed.

The figure marks a 45% increase from 1.65 million tourists who arrived in the same interval a year ago. It also marks a 10% jump from the same period in 2019, dubbed one of the best years ever for the Turkish tourism industry.

Some 1.91 million tourists arrived from January through May 7 of that year.

This year's momentum has been driven by flocks of tourists from Europe, particularly Germany and the United Kingdom, besides arrivals from Russia, partly due to flight restrictions imposed by Western nations over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Overall, foreign tourists in Türkiye in the first quarter rose over 26.7% year-over-year to 6.2 million, according to Culture and Tourism Ministry data.

The foreign exchange makes the tourism sector vital to Türkiye’s economy and the government’s focus on reducing the current account deficit to tackle high inflation and interest rates. Its new economic program focuses on flipping the current account deficits to a surplus, prioritizing exports, production and investments while curbing rising prices inflation.

Tourism income rose 32.3% year-over-year to $8.69 billion (TL 169.50 billion) this January-March, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data.

Last year’s complete rebound from the pandemic fallout saw the number of foreign tourists near the record, generating all-time high revenues and prompting the government to raise its annual tourism estimates.

The government has said foreign arrivals are expected to reach 60 million in 2023 before hitting 90 million in 2028. For the income, it sees it rising to $56 billion this year and $100 billion five years from now.

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 is compared to the 24.71 million arrivals in 2021 and 12.73 million in 2020.

Revenues climbed 53.4% from a year earlier to a record high of nearly $46.3 billion, as lingering pandemic effects dissipated and the Ukraine war fallout drove a surge of Russian arrivals.

Last year’s income blew 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.

Tourism contributes about 10% to Türkiye’s gross domestic product (GDP). In addition, around 1.7 million people worked in accommodation and food services in 2022 – about 5% of total employment.