obilet, the online travel ticketing, car rental and hotel reservation platform, announced the "2023 Travel Statistics Bulletin". Revealing travel trends in 2023, obilet shared interesting results with travel lovers about the most sought-after routes, domestic and international travel trends, and the cheapest and highest ticket prices.
While the most sought-after routes for bus travel this year are Istanbul-Ankara, for domestic flights; It became Istanbul-Izmir. While flights arriving at Nicosia (TRNC) from Adana, Istanbul and Ankara were among the top three international flights, respectively, the most sought-after routes for flights to countries other than TRNC were Istanbul-Baku and Ankara-Baku.
In 2023, unlike previous years, a different picture was observed on the routes with increasing search rates. Due to the earthquake disaster on February 6, 2023, there was a large increase in bus ticket searches on the Istanbul-Hatay and Ankara-Hatay routes compared to 2022. In air travel, the highest search increases were observed on Diyarbakır-Bursa routes domestically and Ashgabat-Istanbul abroad.
ISTANBUL-SOFIA WAS THE MOST SEARCHED FOR IN INTERNATIONAL BUS TRAVEL PREFERENCES
Obilet, which mediates intercity and international bus ticket sales in more than 50 countries, also presented interesting information about international routes in its 2023 bulletin.
The routes most searched for bus tickets from Turkey to abroad are Istanbul-Sofia, Istanbul-Thessaloniki and Istanbul-Batumi, while intercity routes outside Turkey are Sofia-Varna (Bulgaria), Madrid-Barcelona (Spain) and Batumi-Tbilisi (Georgia). were the most searched routes. For inter-country bus services other than Turkey, the most popular routes for Obilet users are Sofia (Bulgaria) – Thessaloniki (Greece), Paris (France) – Lisbon (Portugal) and Tbilisi (Georgia) – Baku (Azerbaijan).
Domestic bus tickets sold ranged from 10 TL to 1.700 TL, international bus tickets ranged from 130 TL to 7 TL, domestic flight tickets ranged from 500 TL to 193 TL, and international flight tickets ranged from 6.099 TL to 277 TL.
BUS PASSENGERS INCREASED BY 18 PERCENT
It was shared that, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, 2023 million registered passengers were transported in scheduled and non-scheduled bus services in 143, thus the annual increase in the number of registered passengers in the bus branch was 18 percent.
According to statistics; The highest monthly number of domestic air passengers was in August with 4 million 658 thousand 745, and the lowest number of domestic air passengers was in February with 2 million 806 thousand 374. In the bus sector, the most registered tickets were sold in September with 19 million 280 thousand 265, and the lowest registered tickets were sold in March with 7 million 319 thousand 729.
RECORD IN THE NUMBER OF INTERNATIONAL PASSENGERS
According to measurements made by DHMI, 2023 million people traveled domestically by plane in the first 11 months of 42,2. The number of domestic air passengers in 45,5, which is expected to reach 2023 million in total for the year, exceeded the number of 2022 million in 39,3. However, it could not reach the record number of passengers of 2018 million in 56,5.
INCREASING INTEREST IN COUNTRIES TO VISIT WITHOUT A VISA
Due to the increase in the rejection rates of Turkish citizens for visa applications, the interest in visa-free countries for international flight tickets has increased. Nicosia (TRNC) and Baku (Azerbaijan) rank first in flight ticket searches, followed by Batumi (Georgia), Tehran (Iran) and Belgrade.
