Turkey to host over 30 mln tourists by end of year

Turkey would host more tourists than the annual target 30 million by the end of 2011, Turkish culture and tourism minister said on Monday. "We will host more than 30 million tourists this year," Culture and Tourism Minister Ertugrul Gunay was quoted as saying by the semi-official Anatolia news agency. Gunay said the ministry was working on a new tourism income calculation method with TurkStat, the Turkish statistics authority, in order to base the calculation on more scientific grounds. Number of tourists visiting Turkey reached 17,624,969, a 10.64 percent increase in the first seven months of 2011, comparing to the same period last year, according to the ministry. In July alone, the number of tourists visiting Turkey reached 4, 597,475, a 5.49 percent increase compared to the same month last year. Tourists from Germany, Russia and Britain were the top three among tourists visited Turkey in July.