Nearly 3 million tourists have visited Turkey this year for shopping

Nearly 3 million tourists visited Turkey in the first 9 months of this year for shopping, spending around $5 billion mainly on clothing and footwear, according to recent data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).

According to the report presented by TÜİK and reported by Turkish media, a total of 2.7 million tourists travelled to Turkey for shopping between January and September 2024, down slightly from 2.78 million in the same period last year.

Despite the slight reduction in visitor numbers, total spending was higher, reaching $4.8 billion on clothing and footwear compared to $4.5 billion of spending on the same item in the first 9 months of 2023, TÜİK reveals. A further $1.7 billion of spending by tourists in Turkey was on souvenirs.

At the same time, more than 250,000 Turkish citizens travelled abroad for shopping between January and September 2024, some 15,000 fewer than last year; similarly, despite this decline, spending by Turks in other countries during this period increased up to $282 million, compared to $244 million the previous year.

In total, Turkey welcomed 3.7 million shopping tourists to the country during the whole of 2023, most of them from Bulgaria and visiting the Turkish city of Edirne, with total spending on clothing and footwear reaching $5.8 billion last year.

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