Turkish Tourism Breaks All The Records in The First Seven Months of 2019
Nearly 25 million international visitors visited Turkey in the first seven months of 2019. There is 14.1% increase compared to previous year’s same period. Mainly visitors diverted to a Mediterranean resort city, Antalya, heading more than 7.85 million visitors. Istanbul as the metropolitan city of turkey, draws most of the tourists calculating up to 8.4 million and then ranking Edirne (on the border of Bulgaria and Greece) broke its own record of tourism by more than 2.5 million people visiting.
Table 1: Top 5 Most Visited Cities by International Visitors
| City | Rate % | Number |
| Istanbul | 34,19 | 8.443.527 |
| Antalya | 31,79 | 7.849.195 |
| Edirne | 10,17 | 2.510.793 |
| Mugla | 7,01 | 1.730.465 |
| Artvin | 4,90 | 1.209.467 |
Russians are on the top of the list with more than 3.75 million visitors, followed by Germans with 2.7 million visitors.
Table 2: Top 5 International Visitors by Nationality
| Nationality | Rate % | Number |
| Russian | 15,20 | 3.752.437 |
| German | 10,82 | 2.670.672 |
| Bulgaria | 5,85 | 1.444.789 |
| English | 5,78 | 1.428.298 |
| Iranian | 4,46 | 1.101.004 |
July 2019 has broken the record by increasing 16.7% compared to previous year of tourism and making a new record of 6.6 million in a single month.
According to the Hotel Association of Turkey (TUROB) hotel occupancy rate was 82.8% in Istanbul and 64.1% in Antalya within this period.
Resouce: The Ministry of Culture and Tourism