Turkish Delights

Emin Kaya from the Turkish Tourism Office in Dubai explains how educating the GCC travel trade has led to a surge in visitors in Turkey.

ATN: What strategies are you taking to promote Turkey to the GCC market?
Our surveys showed that people here love Turkey as a country but they don’t know the destinations in Turkey.

They don’t know Antalya, they don’t know the Black Sea region, and they don’t know Marmaris or even Bodrum. So we have been focusing on promoting these specific destinations as part of our plan over the last three years.

ATN: How closely does the Turkish tourism board work with travel agents in this market?
For us the first step is educating the sellers, not promoting Turkey itself to the customers.

This market is not like the European market. In Europe people search the internet, take some brochures and decide four or five months in advance where they will go holiday but here they decide just one month in advance, and 35 percent of people decide in front of an agent.

So we need to give these people some options about where they can go in Turkey when they are sitting in front of the travel agent.

The agent has to know something about Turkey. If he doesn’t he won’t be able to tell the customer anything and the customer will chose another destination.

We carried out a market survey and found that travel agents here don’t know Turkey very well. So we started to send agents on Fam trips to Turkey, and giving them presentations.

We also give them a ‘Turkey specialist’ certificate. Last year we sent 600 travel agents from this region on one Fam trip, and this year we sent 250 agents from Kuwait on one trip.

ATN: How has your strategy of educating travel agents about Turkey paid off?
For the past three years, our visitor numbers to Turkey from this region have increased by over 30 percent. Despite the impact of the global economic crisis as a country we finished 2009 up on our visitor numbers with 27 million tourists, and this year we are expecting 30 million tourists from all over the world.

From this region we may not receive the biggest numbers but we are experiencing the biggest growth in numbers. From the UAE last year we received 20,000 locals and 25,000 expats (45,000 in total).

From Kuwait it was 25,000 locals and 40,000 expats and Saudi is our biggest market in the GCC. We were expecting a 35 percent increase but we have now renewed our prediction and now we are expecting a 50 percent increase.

ATN: Why do you think Turkey is becoming such a popular destination with tourists from the GCC region?
Some of the reason is down to recent political events. After the Israeli flotilla attack [during which Israeli commandos attacked a convoy of Turkish ships carrying aid to the Gaza strip in May] travel agents from the GCC reported that they increased their bookings to Turkey by 20 percent in just two days.

Another reason is the popularity of the ‘Turkish Series’ of TV programmes [a popular Turkish soap opera shown on Arabic TV] which has become very famous here.

Now every channel here is showing some Turkish series or Turkish movies and the viewing figures are unbelievable. From watching these programmes people have become much more motivated to visit Turkey and see it for themselves.

Politically our government is also very keen to improve relations with this region. They want investment and they want to encourage visitors from here. For example in the last few months we cancelled all visa requirements from Lebanon and Syria and now we have doubled the numbers from these countries so this approach is working for us.

ATN: What does Turkey have to offer visitors from the GCC?
Every area gives something different. Istanbul, the capital of three empires, the Ottoman, the Roman and the Byzantium offers history, shopping, the grand bazaars and night-life.

Most GCC people go there first and then head to a natural place for relaxation like Bursa in the mountains, the Black Sea region or Bodrum. Emirates Holidays recently added some new hotels from Bodrum into its brochure.

ATN: With Ramadan taking place in the high summer season over the next few years, do you see any potential for Turkey to capitalise on this as a ‘Ramadan destination’?
Yes, there were a number of travel agencies who prepared packages especially for Ramadan with the slogan ‘Ramadan in Istanbul’ this year. As a city, Istanbul during Ramadan is not like here.

There are many activities taking place in the big souk areas after Iftar time, and there are many things going on organised by the local government.

In the next five years, Ramadan will be taking place during the high-season so I think Istanbul can be promoted as the best place to spend Ramadan, because life is not dying; life is continuing, in all aspects.

ATN: Are there any new hotels or ones coming up that would appeal to this market?
You might have heard of Mardan Palace, which opened last year in Antalye. It’s the most luxurious hotel in the world, they invested around US$1.6 billion in building it – the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi doesn’t even compare to this hotel.

It’s something else. There are also a number of local companies from here that want to invest in Turkey right now so we are taking them to show them the country.

We are working on one project with one of the Sheikh’s family who wants to invest $1 billion in Turkey to build an Arabic city with hotels and attractions. I can’t give you all the details right now, but it’s going to be huge.