Foreign visitors coming to Turkey between January-October has increased by 6.2 percent when compared to the same period of the previous year. The total number of visitors has reached nearly 26 million, the majority comprising of Germans, Russians and British. Foreign visitors preferred Turkey’s Mediterranean shores by a large margin, 34.1 percent, followed by Marmara and Aegean regions.

According to data made available by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Germany tops the list of countries with nationals visiting Turkey. Some 4 million Germans visited Turkey in the first ten months of 2010, corresponding to 15.3 percent of Turkey’s total foreign visitors. Almost 3 million Russians and 2.5 million Britons visited the country, corresponding to 11.5 percent and 9.9 percent respectively. Iran, Bulgaria, Holland, Georgia, France, Syria and Italy are the other countries ranking behind the first three in terms of numbers of citizens visiting Turkey.