ANKARA (XINHUA) – The number of foreign visitors to Turkey reached 1.28 million in January, an increase of 151.41 per cent compared with the previous year, according to official figures released on Monday.
Turkey’s tourism sector has been recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the figure is still less than the number of January 2020 which was 1.78 million, while the figure was 509,000 in the same month of 2021, according to figures from Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry.
The number of foreign arrivals in Turkey jumped by 94.1 per cent to 24.71 million people through 2021 after the country eased COVID-19 measures.
Tourism is one of the main sectors of income for Turkey and it rebounded in 2021, injecting hard currency into its vulnerable economy.
In January, the highest number of foreign visitors was from Russia with 134,215 people.
