The number of cruise ship passengers who arrived in Türkiye in January-July 2023 increased by 83.6% compared to the same period in 2022, reaching 692,000 people, according to data from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Turanews.kz reports.
The number of cruise ships that arrived in Turkish ports in July 2023 also increased, by 28.3% compared to the same month in 2022, to 154. The number of cruise ship passengers who arrived in Türkiye in July increased by 72.6% to 209,033 people.
In total, 574 cruise ships arrived in Turkish ports in the first seven months of 2023, an increase of 31.4% from the same period in 2022.
The Turkish port of Kusadasi received the most cruise ships in January-July 2023, with 264 vessels calling at the port and carrying 372,831 passengers. The ports of Antalya, Istanbul, and Marmaris were also popular with cruise ship passengers, with 177,119, 161,957, and 113,616 passengers arriving in those ports respectively.
The increase in cruise ship passenger traffic to Türkiye is a sign of the country’s growing popularity as a tourist destination. The Turkish government is hoping to attract even more cruise ship passengers in the coming years, and has announced plans to build new cruise ship terminals in several ports around the country.
