Turkey's Antalya thronged with 9M foreign tourists

The number of tourists coming to Turkey's holiday resort city Antalya approached 9 million as of Aug. 25, according to the Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism.

Around 8.66 million foreign passengers arrived at Antalya Airport and Gazipaşa Airport, a new all-time high, the data said.

Often called Turkey's tourism capital, Antalya is expected to hit an all-time high and host around 14 million foreigners this year.

According to the data, the record for 2014, which is seen as the best year in Antalya, has also been surpassed.

There were about 8.22 million tourists in the same period of 2014, while the number was nearly 6.72 million last year.

Arriving tourists increased by 1.94 million this year compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the same institution announced last month that the number of foreign air passengers arriving in Antalya reached 6.9 million in the first seven months of this year, almost 32 percent more when compared to the same period last year.

According to the Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, 2.1 million foreign passengers arrived in the cities two airports - 2 million at Antalya Airport and 60,141 at Gazipaşa Airport - in July 1-29.

During this period, the number of arriving foreign passengers increased by 21 percent compared to the same period last year.

In the seven-month period from Jan. 1 to July 29, some 181,021 passengers arrived at Gazipaşa Airport while Antalya Airport received more than 6.7 million people, a combined total of 6.9 million foreign passengers.

In the first seven months of 2017, the total number of foreign passengers arriving at Antalya's two airports was 5.2 million.