The Russian tourist flow to Turkey is close to 6 million

According to the official results of 11 months of 2018, Russia remains the market number one for inbound tourism in Turkey, and Turkey itself is the main outgoing market for Russian abroad tourism. But, the most interesting thing is the colossal increase in tourist traffic from Russia in November. The Ministry of Tourism and Culture of Turkey has published statistics on inbound tourism for January - November 2018. According to the Ministry, over the past 11 months 37.54 million foreigners visited the country (+ 22.25% compared to the same period in 2017). Russia maintains its leading position on the Turkish inbound tourism market. Over 11 months, 5,865,466 of the Russians visited Turkey. This is a 26.22% growth compared with the same period in 2017. It is noteworthy that the share of the Russian market in Turkey has also grown: in January-November, it amounted 15.63% of the total incoming flow of Turkey, while a year ago - 15.13%. During the reporting period, Turkey was visited by 4.3 million German tourists (11.55% of the total incoming market, + 25.56% compared with the same period in 2017). On the third position is UK: 2.2 million people (5.89%, + 36.54% compared with 2017). Also the TOP-5 of incoming markets includes Bulgaria (2.18 million) and Georgia (1.93 million people). The most popular tourist destination in Turkey is Istanbul: 12.3 million foreign tourists visited it over 11 months of 2018 (32.91% of all incoming traffic). Below are Antalya (12.26 million foreign visitors - 32.67%), Edirne, Mugla and Artvin. In November 2018, the Russian market showed the third result among all the key markets in Turkey (almost 141 thousand tourists). But the dynamics of the increase in flow are particularly interesting: + 72%. This figure suggests that the interest of Russian tourists to travel to Turkey in the autumn-winter period this year has grown tremendously. The Russians, thanks to a variety of charter programs of tour operators, now much more want to visit country during the low season than before.