Antalya governor says the number of Russian tourists to Antalya breaks all-time record

At his meeting with Aleksey YERHOV, Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Antalya Governor Munir KARALOGLU announced the latest figures for tourist arrivals from Russia. Governor KARALOGLU said, “Antalya is the most visited city in the world by Russian citizens, and we have broken a record this year. In 2014 3 million 307 thousand Russian tourists had visited Antalya. As of 30 September 2017, the number of Russian tourists totaled up to 3 million 376 thousand, which is an all-time record.”

Russian Ambassador to Turkey Aleksey YERHOV visited the Governor of Antalya and signed the special book of the Governor’s Office. The Ambassador noted that he had made his first visit to the Governor of Antalya, whom he had known before. YERHOV emphasized that Antalya was an important point of visit for him and also expressed that it was the capital of tourism and tomatoes.

In reply to the question “Will Turkey be able to export tomatoes to Russia?” the Ambassador said,

“In order to remove restrictions, the governments and leaders of both countries have been working hard. After the introduction of the tomato ban, tomato production was encouraged in Russia and we do not want to harm our own producers by removing this ban.

On the other hand the season for growing tomatoes is shorter in Russia than it is in Turkey. The agriculture executive committee meeting was held in Antalya and a number of measures were evaluated during the meeting which would not prevent resolving the existing problems in the future. The report prepared by the Russian and Turkish Ministry of Agriculture was checked in talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. There will be a commission meeting between governments soon and the decisions will be read in the context of this meeting, but I hope that concerned problems will be resolved, in the future.”