İstanbul, Türkiye's pride, achieved a record with the number of tourists it hosted in July. Last month, İstanbul welcomed 1,873,097 visitors, setting the highest foreign tourist count in a monthly basis in the past 10 years. Moreover, the number of foreign tourists visiting Istanbul in the January-July period of 2023 also increased by 15 percent, nearing 10 million.
According to Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism data, in the first 7 months of the previous year, 8,514,806 foreign tourists visited Istanbul. This year during the same period, the number of tourists increased by 15 percent to reach 9,776,635.
While the city was visited by 1,759,506 foreign tourists in July of the previous year, this July, the number rose to 1,873,097 foreign tourists. Thus, the number of foreign tourists in July increased by approximately 6 percent compared to the previous year.
According to the data, the highest number of tourists after July of this year came to Istanbul in the same month of 2022.
In July, 1,823,416 people arrived in Istanbul by air, while 49,681 people arrived by sea.
Russians in the Lead in July
Russians took the lead in July with 185,636 tourists visiting Istanbul, just like the previous month.
Russia was followed by Germany with 135,568 tourists, Saudi Arabia with 135,096 visitors, the United States with 105,041 visitors, Iran with 97,352 tourists, France with 69,263 tourists, the United Kingdom with 69,006 visitors, Iraq with 51,257 visitors, Kuwait with 45,854 visitors, Israel with 45,257 tourists, and the Netherlands with 44,273 tourists.
In July, 9.91 percent of the visitors to Istanbul were from Russia, 7.24 percent from Germany, 7.21 percent from Saudi Arabia, 5.61 percent from the United States, 5.20 percent from Iran, 3.70 percent from France, 3.68 percent from the United Kingdom, and 2.74 percent from Iraq.
During July, the city was visited by tourists from 196 countries; 1 person each from the Solomon Islands, North Korea, and Papua New Guinea, and 2 people each from Laos and East Timor.
1 out of every 3 tourists visiting Türkiye came to Istanbul
In the first 7 months of the year, out of the total 26,766,240 tourists who visited Türkiye, approximately one-third visited Istanbul.
Moreover, in July of 2019, 1,666,319 tourists visited Istanbul; in July of 2020, the number was 301,930; and in July of 2021, it was 1,130,999.