Tourists visit the Ottoman-era Sultanahmet mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque, in Istanbul, Turkey, August 3, 2017.

:: The number of foreign visitors arriving in Turkey rose 46.4 percent in July to 5.08 million, marking the sharpest rise in 13 years, data from Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism showed on Friday.

The rise – the highest since May 2004 – follows a turnaround in tourism numbers in April, when the number of foreign visitors rose for the first time in nearly two years.

Tourism, which adds about $30 billion to gross domestic product each year, was hit by an attempted coup last July and a spate of bombings blamed on ISIS and Kurdish militants, which scared away tourists over the past year.