Tourist arrivals up eight percent in 2018

Tourist arrivals increased 8.3 percent in the first three quarters of 2018, reaching one million visitors during September.

Some 107,620 tourists visited in September, up 1.5 percent from the same period last year.

There were 1,080,459 tourist arrivals by the end of September, according to statistics from the tourism ministry.

The number of Chinese holidaymakers declined by 6.2 percent compared to the first three quarters of the previous year.

Despite a downward trend since 2015, China remains the largest source market with 222,108 tourists representing a market share of 20.6 percent.

Europeans accounted for 48 percent of visitors with double-digit growth from the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Russia.

Arrivals from Germany grew by 5.3 percent from January to September.

The millionth visitor of this year arrived on September 9 and was named as Koralp Guner by tourism authorities. The millionth tourist of 2017 arrived on October 1.

There were a record 1.39 million tourist arrivals in 2017 but the government has been aiming for 1.5 million, despite missing this target in previous years.

The expansion of the country’s main international airport is expected to boost visitor numbers.