ANKARA

Türkiye’s number of cruise passengers reached 1.5 million in the first nine months of the year, up 34% year-on-year, according to data from the General Directorate of Maritime Affairs compiled by Anadolu.

Some 917 cruise ships docked at Türkiye’s ports in January-September, up from last year’s same period of 876.

Most passengers and ships came to Kusadasi, a large resort town in southwestern Aydin province on the Aegean coast, as the town’s port hosted 412 ships and over 653,400 passengers in the nine-month period.

Istanbul’s Galataport recorded 150 ships and more than 337,700 passengers over the same period.

Meanwhile, the port in the coastal town of Bodrum in the southwestern Mugla province received 75 ships carrying a little over 97,000 cruise passengers, Cesme’s port in Izmir province saw 66 ships and 50,112 passengers, Izmir’s own port registered 45 ships and 128,789 passengers, and Marmaris in Mugla saw 33 ships and 89,882 passengers.

Over the same nine-month period, Samsun in northern Türkiye saw 22 ships and more than 21,100 passengers, port town Amasra in Bartin province on the Black Sea coast hosted 21 ships and over 19,800 passengers, Canakkale city on the southern shore of Dardanelles registered 21 ships and over 13,600 passengers, and Trabzon on the Black Sea coast saw 20 ships with a little over 19,000 passengers.

Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu stated that Türkiye has made great investments in all modes of transportation in the last 22 years, and the country became a center of cruise tourism with recent investments in ports.

“In the last nine months, we have come close to the last year-end’s figure of a little over 1.5 million passengers, and we expect this figure to rise even higher by the end of 2024,” he said.

* Writing by Emir Yildirim in Istanbul.