Tourist visits to Turkey drop in January-May period

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey received more than 4.2 million foreign visitors during the first five months of this year, according to new data released by the Culture and Tourism Ministry on Monday.

Due to the pandemic, the number of foreigners visiting the country plummeted 66.35% in the January-May period on an annual basis, according to the data.

Turkey's historic metropolitan city of Istanbul was the top destination for tourists, hosting 54.86% of all visitors -- around 2.3 million.

This is followed by the northwestern Edirne province with 13.27% or nearly 570,000 foreign visitors in the same period.

The Mediterranean resort city of Antalya received the third-highest number of foreigners, with about 432,000 during the first five months.