Despite a gloomy year amid coronavirus-related mobility restrictions across the world, Turkey generated USD 24.5bn in tourism revenue last year, according to official figures released on Monday.
Though doubling from 2020, the figure for last year fell short of the all-time high of USD 34.5bn set in 2019, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data showed.
Turkey welcomed 29.4 million visitors last year, an increase of 85.5% compared to 2020, but down from 51.9 million in 2019.
While 81.5% of visitors were foreign nationals with nearly 24 million people, 18.5% were Turkish nationals living abroad, with 5.4 million.
