Antalya, one of the world's top tourist destinations, welcomed 1.7 million tourists from 174 countries in May. The number of foreign tourists arriving in the city in the first five months of the year rose by 19% to 3.1 million.

According to the Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the city hosted approximately 14 million foreign tourists last year. This year it is gearing up to break the previous record.

In May alone, 1.7 million foreign tourists arrived in Turkey's tourism capital. The number of local tourists, on the other hand, stood at 45,918. With 1.6 million tourists arriving in Antalya in May 2018, the number of tourists coming to the city increased by 19% in the first five months. In comparison, during the January-May period last year 2.6 million foreign tourists visited the city, which hosted 3.1 million tourists in the same period of this year.

The number of local tourists also saw a 2% increase compared to last year, reaching 169,372.

Russia led the way in the number of tourists visiting Antalya in this period. Accordingly, the number of Russian tourists surged about 20% from 805,040 last year to 1.2 million in January-May period of this year.

Meanwhile, Germany ranked second with 617,354 tourists, followed by Britain with 192,267 tourists, Ukraine with 164,922, and the Netherlands with 133,956 tourists.

Poland, Lithuania, Belgium, Israel and Denmark were also among the top 10 countries sending the highest number of tourists to the city.