In the first nine months of the year the number of foreign visitors, an important source of foreign currency for Turkey, rose 1.47 percent to 21.83 million.
A total of 26.336 million tourists visited Turkey in 2008, and 21.830 million in the first nine months of this year, making it one of the top destinations in the Mediterranean.
The data showed Germany, Russia and Britain remained as Turkey’s top three tourism markets.
In August, the number of foreign tourists visiting Turkey fell by a slight 0.05 percent.
Turkey’s tourism revenues last year amounted to nearly $22 billion, or 3 percent of Turkey’s gross domestic product.
