This year, 25% more Russians chose Turkey as their holiday destination, compared to last year

During the first five months of 2008, Turkey received 25.5% more Russian tourists than during the same period last year. According to Turkey’s official border control statistics, 649,900 Russians arrived in the country during the first six months of 2008. Last year, the number of Russian citizens visiting Turkey during the same period was 517,700. Marina Makarkova, PR Director of Tez Tour reported to Interfax-Tourism that “the 25% increase in the first five months of this year is evidence that Turkey offers holiday opportunities not only in summer, but also in winter and spring”.

Apparently this was no surprise to Ms. Makarkova, “Interest for Turkey is very high and the overall increase will turn out to be much higher at the end of the season”. According to Turkish statistics, the majority of tourists in Turkey are from Germany. Approximately 1.3 million Germans visited Turkey in the first five months of 2008. The second largest group of tourists comes from Russia, although there is a large gap between the two. They are followed by the English (466,800) and the Dutch (336,500).

More than 4 million tourists in Turkey came from the CIS, the majority of whom were from Russia. Next came Georgia (272,200), Ukraine (211,600) and Azerbaijan (178,700). According to Russian statistics, 1.9 million Russians visited Turkey last year but from Turkey, the figure was higher at 2.5 million.

Source: Interfax-Tourism