LOC23:36
20:36 GMT
ANKARA, Sept 29 (KUNA) -- The number of arriving foreigners in Turkey in August 2017 increased by 46.35 percent compared to the corresponding month of last year.
Data of the Turkish National Police show that the number of arriving foreigners hit 4,658,463, including 52,776 (or 1.13 percent) excursionists, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism reported on Friday.
The cities that received the most numbers of arrivals in July 2017 are Antalya - 37.07 percent (1,726,720), Istanbul - 26.80 percent (1,248,528), Mugla - 8.72 percent (406,318), Edirne - 7.47 percent (348,064) and Artvin 6.71 percent (312,492).
The number of arriving foreigners in Turkey in January-August 2017 rose by 26.41percent compared to the same period of the last year.
According to the provisional data acquired from the General Directorate of Security, the number of arriving foreigners in Turkey between January-August 2017 has reached 21,983,873 including 241,150 (1.10 percent) excursionists.
The cities with the most number of arriving foreigners in this period are:
Istanbul - 31.65 percent (6,958,445), Antalya - 30.85 percent (6,782,918), Edirne 9.77 percent (2,148,581), Artvin - 8 percent (1,758,361) and Mugla - 6.63 percent (1,458,361).
Russian tourists accounted for 17.3 percent (or 900,000) of the foreign arrivals in August, followed by Germans - 12.3 percent and the Iranians 6.4 percent.
The number of foreign tourists in Turkey went down to 25.3 million last year from a total of 36.8 million in 2014 and 36.2 million in 2015. (end)
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