Following the arrival of 49 million tourists during the first nine months of the year, Turkey has revised its year-end target of total number of tourists to 61 million people, up from an original 60 million arrivals expected at the beginning of the year.
Increased domestic and international tourists
Data recently released showed that the total number of tourists to Turkey increased by 8.74% in the first nine months of 2024 when compared to 2023. Data from the Culture and Tourism Ministry showed that 49.18 million people had visited Turkey.
Of that, 41.86 million people were foreign tourists, an increase of 6.75%, while 7.32 million visitors were of Turkish origin, a huge increase of 21.7% compared to 2023 as more and more Turkish nationals choose to holiday in Turkey.
Foreign tourists continuing to choose Turkey
In 2023, Turkey welcomed a record 49.2 million foreign tourists. In September 2024 alone, over 6 million foreign nationals chose Turkey as their preferred destination according to Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Culture and Tourism Minister.
Russian nationals were the number one traveller to Turkey through the January-September period, with 5.47 million Russians arriving to Turkey. German nationals came in second, while nationals from the United Kingdom came in third.
Sharp increase in tourism revenue
Data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), showed that tourism revenue in Turkey had also increased year-on-year by 6.6%, reaching $46.9 billion USD in the first nine months of 2024. The Turkish government has estimates for this to reach $60 billion USD by the end of the year. The average expenditure per capita reached $970.
In 2023, tourism revenues reached an all-time high of $54.32 billion USD. Tourism is vital to Turkey, bringing foreign exchange to the country and helping the nation with efforts to curb inflation, flip current account deficits to a surplus, and to bring added investment.
Istanbul 
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