Aysu Biçer
22 June 2020•Update: 22 June 2020
ANKARA
Turkey received more than 4.2 million foreign visitors during the first five months of this year, according to new data released by the Culture and Tourism Ministry on Monday.
Due to the pandemic, the number of foreigners visiting the country plummeted 66.35% in the January-May period on an annual basis, according to the data.
Turkey's historic metropolitan city of Istanbul was the top destination for tourists, hosting 54.86% of all visitors -- around 2.3 million.
This is followed by the northwestern Edirne province with 13.27% or nearly 570,000 foreign visitors in the same period.
The Mediterranean resort city of Antalya received the third-highest number of foreigners, with about 432,000 during the first five months.
Bulgarians accounted for over 9.4% or nearly 400,000 of the visitors, followed by Germans with some 8.3% (357,092 visitors), and Georgians with 7.4% (318,052).
May figures
As the virus's impact still continues around the world, earnest in mid-March with broad travel restrictions and closure of airports and national borders, Turkey's tourism activities nearly came to a halt in May.
The country saw a 99.2% year-on-year decline in foreign visitor numbers, down to 29,829 last month.
Last year, more than 45 million foreigners -- a historic high -- entered the country, up from nearly 39.5 million in 2018.
