TEHRAN – The number of Iranian travelers to Istanbul has followed an upward trend in the recent years, ranking second after Germans when it comes to the distribution of tourists visiting the Turkish city by country.

Iranians account for 7.5 percent of all tourists arrivals to Istanbul, and numerically they may soon surpass that of Germans, who make up for 9.4 percent of the visitors to the city, Daily Sabah reported on Wednesday.

According to information compiled from the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, 386,339 Iranian tourists visited Istanbul in 2013, 590,920 in 2014, 755,707 in 2015, 648,176 in 2016, and 337,259 in the first half of 2017.

Iran ranked seventh in 2013 in the distribution of tourists visiting Istanbul, while the position jumped to second after in 2014, 2015, 2016 and the first six months of 2017. The number of Germans visiting Istanbul in the first six months of this year stood at 403,235, the report added.

There is a rapid increase in the number of Iranian tourists among other tourist groups visiting Istanbul, Ercan Cecen, board member and Iranian market representative of the Middle East Tourism and Travel Agents Association (OTSAD), told Anadolu Agency.

Iranian tourists will soon be top on the list replacing Germans due to the fact that they mostly prefer Istanbul among other [Turkish] destinations, Cecen said.

PHOTO: A woman takes photographs in front of the New Mosque by the Bosporus strait in Istanbul, Turkey, January 12, 2016. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)

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