In a clear sign of revival of tourism traffic, across all segments of travellers, Turkiye says that it has seen a 40-fold growth in the number of cruise ships calling at its ports in the period January to July 2022, compared to the same period last year.

The number of cruise ships to have docked at Türkiye’s numerous ports in the first seven months of this year has soared forty-fold compared to the same period of last year to reach 437, Turkiye’s Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Adil Karaismailoğlu has said.

The Minister said in a written statement that Turkiye received about 376,924 cruise ship passengers in the January-July 2022 period. Comparing with the growth this year, Karaismailoğlu said that only 11 cruise ships had visited Turkiye’s ports at the same time last year. He also added that Kuşadası on the country’s touristic Western shores topped the list this year by hosting the most cruise ships with over 220 ships docking at the port.

It was followed by the commercial capital Istanbul’s brandnew state-of-the-art port, Galataport, with 79 cruise ships, while Bodrum in the Aegean Sea ranked third with 45.

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On the number of passengers that travelled to Turkiye aboard the cruise ships, Karaismailoğlu said that about 25,739 of the total passengers were incoming passengers, while 34,997 were departing and 316,188 were transit passengers. Karaismailoğlu added that with 212,486 passengers, the highest passenger traffic took place in Kuşadası Port and noted that Istanbul’s Galataport welcomed 98,033 passengers and Bodrum Port hosted 28,629.

Looking at the distribution of cruise traffic by months, Karaismailoğlu underlined that this year, with 136 ships, the most ships arrived in May.

“Passenger traffic was 115,907 with 122 cruise ships in June. In July, 120 cruise ships approached Turkish ports. In July, 10,707 passengers arrived at Turkish ports, while some 13,478 have departed,” he informed. In July, the total passenger traffic was 121,107, he added.

Turkiye has seen a significant rebound in its tourist arrivals in 2022, propelling the country rapidly back towards the pre-pandemic numbers when a total of 47 million persons visited the country.

Turkiye says its tourism revenues rose to USD 8.72 billion in the second quarter, up 190 pc from the second quarter of 2021. The country attracted over 16.4 million overseas tourists in the first half of this year, a growth of 185.7 pc over the corresponding period of 2021, according to official data.

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