Turkey rekindles trade ties
The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism conducted an eight-city roadshow for the trade in India to re-establish their association with the country and ensure safe travel.
The ‘Destination Turkey Workshop’ was organised in collaboration with the Association of Turkish Travel Agents and Turkish Hoteliers Federation, for the travel trade in India, and saw a total of 35 participants from Turkey, including DMCs and hoteliers. Speaking at the event, Özgür Aytürk, Coordinator, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Republic of Turkey, said, “We are here to showcase the beauties of Turkey for different segments like golf, honeymoon, wedding, FITs, as well as MICE. We have conducted the roadshow in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Lucknow, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Chennai. The response was really good in all the cities.”
However, in the shadow of the recent unrest and attacks in Turkey, the tourism in the country has received a jolt. Aytürk agrees that they have seen a drop in numbers. “In different markets, the impact was different. In India, we haven’t seen that much of a drop, especially in FITs or leisure. However, the MICE movement was affected to an extent. One of the reasons, we are in India is to re-establish the association with Turkey and connect with our Indian friends, because we know that just like the rest of the world, they too are following international news, which tends to exaggerate things,” he said. Further revealing about the situation, he added, “After the failed coup attempt, Turkey was re-stabilised within couple of hours. The airport and airlines started operating again. None of the touristic destinations got affected. In fact, right after the incident, Turkish Airlines had announced that any tourists wanting to leave the country can get their tickets preponed without any penalty. Even the Association of Turkish Travel Agents and Turkish Hoteliers Federation had announced that they would reimburse the money paid by the tourists, if they wanted to cancel their trip to Turkey or cut it short and head back home. However, only two or three per cent of the total visitors took the offer, and the rest stayed to enjoy their trip.
“Today, Turkey has recovered and settled down and is again ready to welcome tourists. In 2015, we had more than 131,000 Indian travellers to Turkey. This year, there was a drop, but I believe it would pick up very soon and in 2017, we might see a growth rate of over 20-25 per cent.”