According to 2019, Russians flocked to Istanbul. While Antalya shrank by 50% in the number of tourists coming from Russia in 2022, Istanbul showed an improvement of 90%.

Russians flocked to Istanbul

According to 2019, Russians flocked to Istanbul. While Antalya shrank by 50% in the number of tourists coming from Russia in 2022, Istanbul showed an improvement of 90%. The Russian market, which started to decline with the Russia-Ukraine war, decreased by 35% in the 9-month period of 2022, from 5.9 million in 2019 to 3.8 million.
According to the data received by the Tourism Databank, the tourism statistics center, by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the decrease was 50.8% in Antalya, while Istanbul showed an improvement of 89.6%. In the period when İzmir and Muğla also regressed, Istanbul was the only winner.

The share of Istanbul in the Russian market increased

On the other hand, while Antalya’s share in the Russian tourist market decreased from 80% to 60%, Istanbul increased from 8% to 25%. Muğla’s share remained at an average of 7-8% and İzmir’s share remained at 0.5%.