Russia tops lists as Turkey's leading tourist source

In the ranking of countries sending the most visitors to Turkey within the first eight months of 2023, Russia secured the top spot with nearly 4.4 million visitors, followed by Germany with roughly 4.1 million visitors and England with 2.7 million visitors.

Sunday September 24 2023 11:47 am

Duvar English

In the first eight months of 2023, when it comes to countries sending the most visitors to Turkey, Russia led the way with a dramatic 44.84% increase compared to the same period in 2022, bringing in around 4.4 million visitors.

Germany followed in second place with a 6.03% increase, sending approximately 4.1 million visitors, while England secured the third spot with a 12.36% increase, delivering around 2.7 million visitors, according to Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry.

Bulgaria and Iran were also among the top five tourist-sending countries.

Turkey hosted nearly 36.7 million visitors in the 8-month period of the year. Among them, 33.4 million were foreign nationals, and 3.3 million were Turkish nationals residing abroad.

Istanbul, one of the country's biggest tourism destinations, hosted 11.5 million tourists alone.

The number of foreign visitors increased by 13.95 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

Even though Turkey has been one of the leading tourist destinations for Russians for a long time, the embargo and sanctions against Russia imposed by European countries due to the invasion of Ukraine also affected the flow of Russian tourists.

On the other hand, Turkey become one of the cheapest options for European tourists because of the country’s raging inflation and depreciation of the Turkish lira. One euro equals 29 lira as of Sept. 24.