As part of the “2019 Year of Turkish Culture in Japan” events, the Japanese have once again turned their holiday route to our country...

The promotional activities Türkiye has carried out as part of the “2019 Year of Turkish Culture in Japan” events have once again turned the Japanese holiday route toward our country.

The opening of the “Treasures and the Tulip Tradition in the Ottoman Empire Exhibition,” which Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy recently held in the capital Tokyo with the participation of Her Imperial Highness Princess Akiko of Mikasa of Japan, along with the interviews in which he conveyed warm messages to the Japanese public, have begun to make their impact felt through the upward momentum in the number of Japanese tourists.

The number of Japanese visitors to Türkiye in the first two months of the year rose by 28 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching 13,267. In February of this year, a total of 7,391 Japanese visitors came to Türkiye.

Istanbul the Most-Visited Province

According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s border entry-exit statistics for the January–February 2019 period, Türkiye hosted 3,209,734 foreign visitors in the first two months of the year, an increase of 7.4 percent. The province with the most arrivals into Türkiye was Istanbul.

In the first two months of this year, Istanbul – which received 1,903,638 foreign visitors, an increase of 13.32 percent compared to the same period of the previous year – became the province through which approximately 60 percent of all foreign visitors entered.

Istanbul was followed by Edirne, with an increase of 11.77 percent and 394,115 foreign visitors, and by Antalya, with an increase of 63.10 percent and 252,206 foreign visitors. The other provinces with the most arrivals in the January–February 2019 period were Artvin and Ankara, respectively.

German Visitors on the Rise

In the ranking of countries sending the most visitors to Türkiye, Germany – which ranked third this past January – rose to second place both in the first two-month period of the year and in February.

In the January–February 2019 period, the most foreign visitors to Türkiye came from Bulgaria, with an increase of 18.63 percent and 274,475 visitors, while Germany ranked second with an increase of 19.90 percent and 235,732 visitors. Georgia ranked third with 232,740 visitors. Georgia was followed by Iran and the Russian Federation, respectively.

Bulgaria First in the First Two Months

In February of this year, Türkiye once again hosted 1,670,238 foreign visitors, an increase of 9.38 percent compared to the same month of the previous year.

While the ranking of countries sending the most visitors again remained unchanged, Bulgaria ranked first with an increase of 25.51 percent and 140,669 visitors compared to the same month last year, and Germany ranked second with an increase of 21.77 percent and 133,612 visitors. Germany was followed by Georgia, Iran and Iraq, respectively.