Ministry of Culture and Tourism figures show 28 pct year-on-year hike in first 10 months of 2017

ANKARA

Around 29 million foreigners visited Turkey in the first ten months of the current year, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced on Wednesday.

The ministry said that the figure rose by 28 percent on a yearly basis, up from 22.7 million in the period of Jan-Oct last year.

Turkey's holiday resort city of Antalya, which is located on the Mediterranean coast, recorded the highest number of visitors with 9.25 million in the ten-month period.

Istanbul, Turkey's largest city by population and one of the top touristic destinations, became the second among all cities with border gates, with around 9 million foreign visitors.

Russia took the first place by its share of 15.7 percent -- some 4.5 million visitors -- according to nationalities of foreign visitors over the same period, followed by Germany (11.5 percent) and Iran (7.3 percent).

Official data also showed that airway was the most preferred mean of transport, with 21.4 million travelers, while 6.9 million and around 700,000 visitors used roadway and seaway, respectively.

The ministry figures pointed a gradual recovery that came after the lift of ban on tourist flights from Russia and overcoming terror attacks. Last year, 25.3 million foreigners entered the country, while the number of arriving foreigners was 36.2 million in 2015.