Turkey: Tourist numbers continue to increase

69.71 percent of foreign tourists, who visited the country in October, were citizens from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (EOCD) countries and 21.9 percent from Eastern European countries. Among the countries which sent their citizens to Turkey in October, Germany ranked first with 29.94 percent (551,553 people), England second with 8.83 percent (162,617 people) and Holland third with 8.37 percent (154,150 people). These countries were followed by Russia, Bulgaria, Iran, Greece, Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium, America, Azerbaijan, Sweden and Israel. The number of tourists and regions where they visited were the Mediterranean (763,039), Marmara (583,970), Aegean (394,026), Eastern Anatolia (54,894), Southeastern Anatolia (42,078), Black Sea (25,664) and Central Anatolia (23,282).

The number of foreign tourists, that visited Turkey between January-October 2004 was 15,778,402 an increase of 25.13 percent compared with the same period last year. 28.87 percent of tourists came from Eastern European countries and 62.75 percent from OECD countries. During the first ten months of 2004, 22.66 percent came from Germany, 9.68 percent from Russia and 8.49 percent from Britain. They were followed by Holland, Bulgaria, Iran, France, Austria, Greece, Belgium, Italy, Israel, Azerbaijan, Sweden and Ukrania.