A recent hike in the number of tourists arriving in Turkey has led to questions about whether such a flow will be sustained in the long run. While political authorities remain optimistic, experts in the sector have some doubts.
The number of tourists visiting Turkey has been steadily climbing thanks to the impact of a number of policies and related infrastructure investments, along with Turkey’s increasing popularity as a tourist destination in its immediate region in recent years.
This year is an election year for Turkey and the focus is currently on upcoming June 12 general elections. However, there are significant developments in the tourism sector that even the elections cannot overshadow. The number of tourists coming to Turkey has approached 6 million in the first four months of this year, a remarkable 21 percent increase from the January-April period last year, marking the biggest hike in numbers in years.
The increase in tourist numbers is more significant when it comes to various individual cities. The number of tourists arriving in Antalya was up 33 percent for the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year. This increase was more significant for the city of İzmir, at around 55 percent for the same period.
In recent years the number of tourists arriving in Turkey has been steadily climbing thanks to the impact of a number of policies and related infrastructure investments, along with Turkey’s increasing popularity as a tourist destination in its immediate region. Currently, Turkey ranks seventh in terms of the number of incoming tourists and eighth in terms of tourism revenue in globally. According to figures provided by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), Turkey’s tourism revenue rose above $25 billion in 2010. In an earlier exclusive interview with Sunday’s Zaman, Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay mentioned that there are strong signals that this increase will continue as he expects more than 30 million tourists by the end of the year.
However, this recent hike in numbers in Turkey has been mainly attributed to the Arab Spring that blew through the Middle East and North Africa, having a major impact on tourist destinations in those areas. The Turkish tourism sector is seeing the benefits of this with Turkish travel agencies already receiving a higher-than-usual volume of calls from European countries.
A prominent tourism expert in Turkey, Cem Polatoğlu, the owner of Baracuda Tour, asserts that in the short run there is not much Turkey can do to develop strategies towards a sustaining these tourism figures. He says that the only thing Turkey can do for these tourists to ensure they want to come back again next year is to provide excellent service. In the long run there are crucial steps Turkey can take in addressing issues it faces so that it can build a fully globally competitive tourism sector, especially when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has set a target for the country to be among the world’s top five tourist destinations and hosting 50 million tourists yearly by 2023, the centennial of the Turkish Republic.
Professional training for workers in the sector is a must, says Polatoğlu. He is critical of the industry’s practice of hiring anyone who speaks a foreign language without any requirements for any certification in the industry. He argues that in major tourist destination countries, their tourism sector workers are often required to have certification to work in the industry. “Even taxi drivers are obliged to obtain a certificate in order to provide services in tourist destinations in certain countries” he told to Sunday’s Zaman.
Winter and summer break times in Turkey should be organized in such a way as to prevent a rush to tourist areas at certain times, which is a major reason behind skyrocketing prices in the peak season, Polatoğlu says. “There are 17 million students at the elementary and high school levels in Turkey. Different areas could have different holiday times to prevent such rush to tourist destinations, thus preventing inconsistent price fluctuations” he suggests.
Something that plays a major role in the destination decisions of many tourists is the casino sector, claims Polatoğlu. “If you look at countries surrounding Turkey, you will see they have set up casinos and are attracting a major tourist flow. For instance, in Bulgaria the annual casino revenue is between $20-25 billion. If the government wants to ban it for its own citizens, well that is fine, but for tourists this is one of the top and most preferred pastimes when they are vacationing,” Polatoğlu argues.
Polatoğlu says that there are close to half a million state-owned holiday establishments located in the best tourist areas in Turkey where it costs only TL 8 a day (including meals) for members and which are in urgent need of privatization for the sake of the tourism sector. “The rest of the costs [of these establishments] are taxpayer funded,” he adds. According to sources in the sector, the budget allocated for Turkey’s promotion abroad is around $130 million. Yet, problems persist as resources allocated for this purpose are not utilized efficiently, Polatoğlu claims. As an example, he says the advertising billboards used in France to promote Turkey are located in the areas where mainly lower income people live.
Polatoğlu also notes that Turkey does not have a presence at effective platforms where all other major tourism countries appear. As an example he cites one of the major promotion platforms in the world, the Epcot theme park in Orlando, US, which hosts the World Showcase, which is a collective of pavilions where participant countries hold their attractions, set up restaurants and represent their cultures.“Representatives from the tourism sector in Turkey should take more initiative in the decision-making process regarding issues faced by their sector,” he suggests.
Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Culture and Tourism Ministry Promotion General Manager Cumhur Güven Taşbaşı, does not accept criticisms about of ineffective promotion given the steadily increasing tourist numbers and revenues. He says that in recent years, the ministry’s policy has been to promote all types of tourism in sectors including winter, faith, culture, health and sports-based tourism.
“We do not agree with arguments that Turkey’s tourism sector is benefitting from the uprisings and economic and political tensions in other parts of the world. This would be a short-lived effect considering that in the medium run people tend to cancel vacation plans when there is such unease in the world. Thus, we hope that stability and peaceful solutions will prevail at the end, benefitting all tourist destinations in the world,” he stated. “One of the main objectives in making the tourism sector sustainable in Turkey is to spread the tourist season over 12 months by promoting and strengthening other types of tourism as well. There are signs that these efforts are being successful. For instance, while İstanbul ranked 17th in congress tourism globally a few years ago, in 2010 it was ranked seventh,” Taşbaşı argued.
When it comes to faith tourism Taşbaşı mentioned that Turkey has the potential to become one of the prime destinations in the world for faith-based events. He puts forward the example of the historic Sümela Monastery mass in Trabzon last year with 3,000 Orthodox Christians in attendance who travelled from Greece, Russia, Georgia and other countries.
Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay recently told Sunday’s Zaman that the historic city of Tarsus, which is the administrative center of Mersin province in Turkey’s south, is taking a significant position as a pilgrimage destination for Christians.
Efforts to encourage those tourists to book their holidays again in Turkey will intensify because of predictions that countries such as Egypt and Tunisia will introduce attractive deals to win back tourists they lost due to recent events in their countries. Furthermore, the European Union is planning to allocate 14 billion euros in subsidies for its members whose tourism sectors were negatively affected by the global crisis. Such funds will be directly spent on tourism-related infrastructure in countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal, which are also Turkey’s main competitors in the tourism sector.
After all, the increasing number of tourists is not only significant for increased revenues and jobs but are also significant for easing the effects of the chronic current account deficit in Turkey.