Turkey isn’t just a summer destination

By August the deficit had not only been reversed ­ with arrivals for the month up a healthy 19 percent on August 2002 ­ but the total number of visitors over the first eight months was showing an encouraging 2.2 percent increase on the last year’s record 13.3 million visitors.
On the back of such good news many within the sector are predicting that the overall number of arrivals may top 14 million with revenues expected to come close to last year’s record $13 billion.
“We’re very happy with the way things have turned out,” said Erhan Cakay, head of TUROB, the Turkish Hotel Owner’s Association. “Over the past three months hotels have been experiencing occupancy rates of around 95 percent ­ far better than the 35 percent occupancy back in April and far better than we were hoping for at the start of the season.”
The rapid recovery in arrivals is good news for Turkey on two fronts. On the one hand it confirms the high level of interest in the country as a holiday destination in its core European markets. Indeed arrivals from Turkey’s biggest market, Germany, reached 530,000 in August alone ­ up a whopping 20 percent on last year.
More importantly, it also demonstrates conclusively that in Europe at least suspicions that Turkey may be in some way a risky destination have finally been laid to rest.
This is indeed good news for the Turkish tourism sector, which has traditionally been prone to sudden collapse in response to regional or local instability. While the number of visitors to Turkey has been growing by an annual 10-15 percent over the past 15 years, there have been some hiccups, with the Gulf War of early 1991 causing arrivals to drop by over 20 percent.
“In 1991 Turkey was not so well established and no one knew what to expect, so bookings did not pick up much during the season,” said Riza Epikmen, head of TURSAB, Turkey’s Association of Travel Agents. “This time it’s been very different. There were some cancellations in March and April, but it appears that many people simply postponed their holiday until later in the year.”
Even more encouragingly, hotels and travel agents report that there has been a sudden and newfound interest in late-season bookings.
“The invasion of Iraq has actually helped extend the season. There are a high level of bookings through October and even up to mid-November.” said Cakay. “December is
looking good too, with lots of bookings over the Christmas period. People are waking up to the fact that Turkey isn’t just a summer destination.”
There has been further good news in the increased interest shown in Turkey this year by both visitors from the Arab world and from Israel, with both groups happy to take advantage of Turkey’s easy-going and non-discriminatory hospitality and general safety, as well as the wide-ranging shopping opportunities and overall value for money.
Similarly encouraging has been the rise in the number of visitors from Turkey’s near neighbor, Greece, the fruit of recent rapprochement which has seen the former bitter enemies grow closer.
Greek visitors to Turkey over the first nine months of the year were up a staggering 42 percent at 243,000, with many within the sector expecting a similarly huge increase in 2004.
But the opportunities offered by the warming of relations are not confined to Greek visitors alone.
“With the Olympic Games being held in Athens next year we’ve had a lot of interest in multi-center package holidays visiting destinations in both Greece and Turkey,” explained Vedat Bayrak, chief executive officer of Settur, one of Turkey’s biggest tourism companies.
Overall hopes for the 2004 season are high, with Cakay promising: “Give us a full year with no ‘ill winds’ and we’ll be breaking more records.”