Turkey's tourism income increases in Q1

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA

Turkey's total tourism income increased by 31.3 percent, year-on-year, reaching $4.25 billion in the first quarter of 2018, according to a report released by Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on Monday.

The report showed that 76.1 percent of tourism revenue, excluding GSM roaming and marina service expenditures, came from foreign visitors and the rest from citizens living abroad.

Turkey welcomed more than 6.1 million tourists in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 26.4 percent from the same quarter in 2017.

"While 80.2 percent of visitors was foreign with 4,908,831 persons, 19.8 percent of them were Turkish citizens resident abroad with 1,213,351 persons," TurkStat said.

According to TurkStat, the number of Turkish citizens traveling abroad in the quarter rose by 9.1 percent over the same period and reached almost 2.7 million.

The next quarterly data of TurkStat on tourism statistics is due on July 31.