Some 20,000 tourists visited Türkiye’s ports in January with 18 cruise ships, the Ministry of Transport announced Sunday.

This marked the highest number of cruise ship passengers visiting the country for the month of January since January 2011, when 20,712 passengers arrived in Türkiye on cruise ships, ministry officials said.

"Turkish ports saw a record number of cruise ships and passengers last year and we hope to attract more than 2 million cruise ship passengers this year," an official said.

Some 1,192 cruise ships visited the country’s ports, with October witnessing the busiest traffic last year, according to the data.

The number of cruise ship passengers surged by nearly 50% compared to 2022 to more than 1.5 million.

Last month, Istanbul and the northern province of Samsun were the busiest in terms of cruise ship traffic. Istanbul and Samsun, on the Black Sea coast, welcomed four cruise ships each, with 4,900 and 3,900 passengers, respectively.

The ports of Amasra and Trabzon, both also on the Black Sea coast, welcomed three cruise ships. More than 3,000 cruise travelers visited Amasra, while the corresponding number of the province of Trabzon was 2,957.

Two cruise ships with 1,800 passengers on board docked at the popular tourist destination Kuşadası last month.

The western provinces of Çanakkale and Izmir received one cruise ship each in January, according to the official data.

More than 2 million foreign tourists visited Türkiye in the first month of 2024, marking a 2.1% increase from a year ago.

Last year, Türkiye welcomed 49.2 million foreign holidaymakers, up 10.4% from 2022.

Türkiye aims to attract 60 million visitors and generate $60 billion in tourism revenues in 2024.