Turkey welcomes nearly 5.5M foreign visitors in Q1

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey welcomed 5.44 million foreign visitors in the January-March period, the Culture and Tourism Ministry announced Tuesday.

In the first quarter of 2019, the number of foreign visitors rose by 6.12% on a yearly basis.

Istanbul, Turkey's world-famous touristic city, was the top arriving destination with nearly 3.1 million tourists, accounting for 56.4% of all foreign visitors.

The northwestern province of Edirne, which borders both Bulgaria and Greece, welcomed some 695,000 foreigners.

The Mediterranean resort city of Antalya followed Edirne with over 500,000 foreign visitors in the three-month period.