ISTANBUL, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's tourism revenue grew further by 37.6 percent in the third quarter of this year, showing signs of a strong recovery following a sluggish period amid uncertainty, the Turkish Statistics Institute said on Tuesday.
Turkey earned 11.39 billion U.S. dollars from July to September, with 77 percent of the revenue from foreign visitors and the rest from visiting Turkish expatriates, show figures released by the agency.
The country hosted a total of 16.6 million tourists in the third quarter, up 38.1 percent over the same period last year, and 13.7 million of them were foreigners, the agency said.
Foreigners spent an average of 634 dollars per capita during their stay in Turkey, as against 900 dollars by Turkish expatriates.
Tourism once contributed as much as four percent to Turkey's GDP, but has suffered over the past two years due to uncertainty marked by terror attacks, failed coup and tensions with some European countries.
As tourism income and foreign arrivals both dropped by nearly 30 percent in 2016, the decline continued in the first quarter of this year, while the second quarter saw an increase of 8.7 percent in revenue to 5.41 billion dollars.
