Category: Travel

Turkish Airlines strengthen GCC tourist arrivals with new ‘Winter in Turkey’ campaign

Turkish Airlines, the national carrier of Turkey and Europe’s best airline, is promoting the country’s diverse cultural wonders, exhilarating winter activities and enriching holiday experiences as part of its ‘Winter In Turkey’ campaign, offering tourists competitive prices and promotions to one of the world’s fastest growing tourist destinations.

Building on its credentials as the world’s fastest growing airline, Turkish Airlines has a growing network across the Middle East, which now provides access to over 200 destinations worldwide. The heightened popularity of Turkey as an all-round holiday destination is further complemented by the award winning service and competitively priced flights of Turkish Airlines, whether for a holiday trip or stop-over in Istanbul for beyond destination travel.

The number of tourists travelling to Turkey from the GCC region have increased dramatically in the last few years, with a growth of over 370% from the UAE and almost 600% from Qatar comparing August 2011 to August 2012 figures, all contributing to over 31 million foreign tourists to the country in 2012.

Turkish Airlines President and CEO, Temel Kotil, Ph.D said: “As the national carrier of Turkey, we are delighted with the growing popularity of Turkey as a preferred tourism destination for visitors from around the world, including the GCC region. Turkey’s spectacular cultural blend of Eastern and Western influences and cultural linkages with the Middle East make the country a popular destination amongst GCC tourists.

“With Istanbul less than five hours away from the Gulf Region, and the country offering access to winter sports for almost half the year, we are confident passenger number will increase with the launch of our new ‘Winter in Turkey’ campaign.”

The ‘Turkey in Winter’ campaign, running until March, highlights the country’s seasonal offering, as a playground for exhilarating sports with over 20 skiing destinations, as well as the enriching cultural experiences in Istanbul and historical cities, delectable culinary delights and stunning natural scenery.

The ski slopes in the country are set to international standards and host competitions including the upcoming World Youth Snow-Board championships from March 1-11 in Erzurum. For those seeking relaxation, there is an abundance of thermal spas in world-famed areas like Pamukkale and Sandikli.

In 2013, the number of beds in ski resorts is set to grow by 60,000 to accommodate for the soaring popularity of winter tourism in the country. In resorts like Erciyes, where occupancy rates have approached 100%, construction of 21 hotels is due to begin this year. According to the Kayseri Tourism Master Plan, the 275 million Euro investment is expected to provide 5,000 additional hotel rooms, setting Erciyes as one of the best mountain and winter sports resorts in the Middle East and Balkans.

Bursa, a key winter destination nestled in the northwest of Turkey and the erstwhile capital of the Ottoman Empire, is famed for Mount Uludag and an expansive ski resort which combines traditional elements of chic alpine chalets and log fires, with fine dining, five star hospitality and relaxing spa facilities.

Mr. Sahabettin Harput, Governor of Bursa, said: “Bursa is regarded as a pioneer of winter tourism in Turkey because of its traditional approach to Alpine hospitality. The city’s rich historical relevance pays homage to the opulence of the Ottoman Empire and provides tourists with the ultimate winter holiday destination.”

Whether traversing the snow-capped mountains of Bursa or marvelling at the historical sites of Istanbul, Turkish Airlines, as Europe’s Best Airline, offers affordable luxury for the journey. Its Miles & Smiles loyalty programme rewards frequent flyers; Wingo promotions provide competitively priced tickets; and guests travelling business class can enjoy Europe’s largest CIP lounge in Istanbul.

Building on its credentials as the world’s fastest growing airline, Turkish Airlines has a growing network across the Middle East, which now provides access to over 200 destinations worldwide.

via Turkish Airlines strengthen GCC tourist arrivals with new ‘Winter in Turkey’ campaign | Turkish Airlines | AMEinfo.com.

March 7, 2013
3 people, 3 classic Istanbul tourist experiences: Turkish bath, Grand Bazaar, hookah lounge

By Staci B. Brooks | sbrooks@al.com

on March 06, 2013 at 6:03 PM, updated March 06, 2013 at 6:13 PM

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Most of the University of Alabama EMBA students’ recent visit to Turkey involved visiting various company headquarters and factories to understand Turkey’s place in the global economy.

But, of course, all work and no play is a waste of a plane ticket.

As a group, we visited the Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, the Blue Mosque,Topkapi Palace, the Hippodrome area, and many more ancient sites. We also cruised the Bosphorous, and crossed from the European side to the Asian side multiple times. (Istanbul is the only major city in the world to sit on two continents.)

Evenings brought free time, and we broke off in small groups to experience more of Istanbul. Here are recaps of three classic Istanbul activities from students who wanted to experience them:

Turkish bath

The “hammam” or authentic Turkish bath Ayasofya in Istanbul. The hammam was built in 1556 and reopened in 2011 after an extensive restoration. It sits between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. (Staci Brooks/al.com)

A Turkish bath is more about the beauty of the facility and the rituals of bathing than it is about the act itself. Multiple guidebooks and the concierge at the hotel recommended the Ayasofya Hurrem Sultan Hamam for a beautiful and authentic experience. The Ayasofya “hammam,” or bathhouse, was built in 1556. Its architect, Mimar Sinan, was the chief Ottoman architect and his work is still seen throughout Istanbul.

Everything guests touch in the Ayasofya Hurrem Sultan Hamam is marble, except for the gold-plated bath bowls. Look up and you’ll see the building’s massive domes from almost every room. Just breathtaking. The hammam was originally built for a sultan’s wife and it shows. (It was restored a few years ago and re-opened for regular folks.)

If you want to give an authentic Turkish bath a try, here are some things to keep in mind if you visit this bathhouse:
*Men and women have separate facilities and separate entrances.
*Men get male attendants and women get female attendants.
*You will get a locker with a digital code to store your clothes and belongings.
*Everything was spotless. All guests get a new, sealed packet of soap, shampoo, conditioner, a comb and the world’s scrubbiest loofah mitt to use for their services and to take home.
*You can be as modest (or immodest) as you like. The attendants try to make everyone feel comfortable. Some choose to wear bathing suits for their services.
*Your attendants might not speak much English. But the signs for “Stop!” and “Lighten up, please.” are universal. You want baby soft skin? It’s gonna hurt a little.
*Be prepared to spend the equivalent of at least $100. When I visited, services started around $90 and you don’t want to be the person who doesn’t leave a good tip for the other human being who just bathed you.
*Relax and enjoy the moment. Pretend you’re a sultan or a sultan’s wife.
Staci Brooks

Grand Bazaar

Handbags, luggage, clothes, spices, teas, vases, rugs, and much, much more. Thousands of shops make up Istanbul’s famed Grand Bazaar. Great negotiators can find great deals. (Staci Brooks/al.com)

The Grand Bazaar is busy, chaotic, loud, packed with people, and the shopkeepers are pushy and don’t take no for an answer.

And it’s a whole lot of fun.

The Bazaar is one of the largest covered markets in the world. It’s a collection of thousands of small shops on a grid of about 60 streets. Shopkeepers hawk spices, Turkish tea, jewelry, souvenir trinkets, leather jackets, shirts, luggage, rugs and tapestries and much, much more. They also sell high-end designer-like goods, including handbags and perfume, of, well, questionable provenance and authenticity.

Once you get the hang of it and aren’t blinded by all the chaos and deafened by the pushy shopkeepers (“Special price for you, my friend. 80 lira. Why you won’t come look?”), you begin to notice there is some order to all the madness. All the handbag and luggage shops are here; all the jewelry is over there; all the shirts are around the corner and so on. It’s organized into sections, although it is really, really hard to tell at first.

At the Bazaar, they take Turkish lira, but they love euros and U.S. dollars. Just make sure you know which currency you’re negotiating in. Some shopkeepers might try to trick you into thinking they were negotiating in dollars not lira. Be firm. Negotiating is a natural part of the Turkish culture and they are very, very good at it.

Here’s one student’s take on the Bazaar. This Birmingham-area woman, already known as a skilled negotiator among our classmates, really gave those shopkeepers a run for their lira:

“The most fun at the Bazaar was negotiating with the store owners. It is best if you price items at a local shop before heading to the Bazaar. That way you can negotiate a fair price. I heard that items at the Bazaar are (initially priced) double what they are worth, and I found that to be true. A T-shirt that sells for 10 Turkish lira in the city was priced at 24 Turkish lira at a Bazaar shop. Don’t be afraid to negotiate with the sellers. They expect you to do so and are very amicable.”
LaJuan Jones

Hookah lounge

The Ali Baba Nargile hookah, or water pipe, lounge in Istanbul, Turkey. (UA EMBA)

The hookah bars were a huge hit with many in our group. The hookahs, or waterpipes, are used to smoke flavored tobacco. Hookah smoking originated in ancient Persia and is a centuries-old practice.

One student, who loves his cigars back in the States, was among those who checked out an Istanbul hookah, or “narghile,” bar:

“The hookah, or water pipe, is not used for the illicit purposes we think of here in the U.S. In fact, in Istanbul, most hookah bars do not even serve alcohol. It’s the equivalent of our cigar bars. The shisha tobacco used in the hookah pipe comes in an assortment of flavors including mint, cherry, cappuccino, and the Turkish favorite, anise.

As an avid cigar connoisseur, I can tell you the smooth flavor of the shisha tobacco puts even the best cigars to shame. The smoke from the hookah isn’t like a smoke at all. It’s more like a flavored mist, or so it seems as compared to American tobacco products.

One of the most popular hookah bars in Istanbul is the Ali Babba Narghile. While lounging on soft benches in an open-air restaurant, you are surrounded by Turkish mosaic lamps and Ottoman chandeliers. The aroma of smooth shisha flavors filling the air is an experience that is uniquely Turkish. If you find yourself in Istanbul and would like a memorable experience, take your companions to a local narghile bar and enjoy the flavors of Turkey.”
Russ Elrod

March 7, 2013
Istanbul Sees a Rise in Number of Tourists in 2013

Published on Mar 06, 2013 by Violeta-Loredana Pascal

Data from the Culture and Tourism Ministry reveals some interesting facts regarding tourism in Turkey in the beginning of 2013. In the first two months of this year, Istanbul got more visitors than in the same period of time in the previous year. However, information provided by the Mediterranean Touristic Hotels and Investors Association (AKTOB) shows that Antalya had a smaller number of tourists than in 2012.

The number of tourists visiting Istanbul grew 21.6% in January and February 2013 compared to the same period of time in 2012, reaching a total of 1,149,741 tourists, with 532,726 visiting the city in January and 617,015 in February, Hurriyet Daily News reports.

In what Antalya is concerned, the number of visits in January and February 2013 saw a decrease of 6.3% compared to the same period in 2012. Speaking numbers, Antalya had 251,260 tourists this year from 268,192 last year. Also impressive is the percentage of tourists who chose to see Istanbul: 45.6% from the total tourists who visited Turkey in the same period. The most tourists who visited the city came from Germany (105,589), Russia (82,736), UK (49,197), France (45,289), U.S. (43,865), India (42,183) and Ukraine (40,156).

There were 121,000 German tourists this year (compared to 139,000 in the same period of 2012, a 12.8% decrease), and 28,000 Russian tourists, a 11.3% decrease from 2012. However, there has been an increase too, by 4%, of Dutch tourists who visited Antalya in January and February 2013 compared to 2012. Increases in the number of tourists who visited Antalya at the beginning of 2013 were also registered for tourists coming from Norway, Finland, Belgium, Israel and U.S.

It looks like Turkey has to go the extra mile and launch all the 69 new sites as well as come with interesting offers to reach its goal of attracting 33 million foreign tourists this year.

via Istanbul Sees a Rise in Number of Tourists in 2013.

March 7, 2013
Istanbul is wearing its history on its sleeve

The melodic wail of the azan, the call to prayer, pierces my jet-lagged sleep. “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”God is great! God is great! calls the amplified muezzin in a high tenor. Quickly following, second muezzin sings in a resonant baritone. Before the first begins his next phrase, a third chimes in, another tenor with a faster tempo.

The Suleymaniye Mosque dominates the skyline above the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn in Istanbul.
Dennis Jones | Special to the Daily

Somewhere more distant, a fourth azan rings forth and maybe a fifth. I can’t tell. The melodious call to prayer reverberates along the dark, narrow streets and alleys of Sultanahmet, Istanbul’s old city. The sounds echo off walls and buildings, rising to a glorious cacophony until each muezzin finishes his turn, and once again quiet rules the dawning day.

I have returned to Turkey with a contract for a book from a Turkish publishing house. Seeing my previous work, an editor felt there was a place in their catalog for a book by an American photographer-writer that could reinforce the bridge between Western misconceptions and the reality of his dynamic country.

They’ve invited us for lunch. Their office is somewhere in Asia — that is, the Asian side of the legendary Bosphorus dividing not just Istanbul, but Europe and Asia as well.

“Take a ferry from Eminonu to Uskudar, then a taxi to my office,” wrote the editor. On the ferry, address in hand, we meet a kindly, English-speaking Turkish gentleman who takes us under his wing. “Don’t take a taxi. They’ll drive you around and cheat you.” He finds the right bus, even pays our fare and hands me his phone number, saying, “Call me when you’re done and I’ll show you the fantastic view from Camlıca Tepe.”

Following our course on Google Maps shows me where to get off, but when I get to the location shown on the app, it’s not there. Quizzical gestures with the address to a passerby points me to the building two blocks away.

The meeting goes well. We’re shown warm, Turkish hospitality and the impressive variety and quality of books they publish. When finished, the editor calls our new friend and we agree to meet at the ferry. How can one pass up such serendipitous hospitality?

Weather has turned. It’s overcast, not an afternoon to photograph a spectacular mountaintop view. He suggests a ferry ride through the Golden Horn, the body of water separating old Istanbul from the more cosmopolitan Beyog’lu district.

After passing beneath the famous Galata Bridge, we zig-zag from shore to shore, dropping people off, picking others up. Dusk descends. A glorious sunset spreads behind the city, silhouetting mosques and their minarets against a crimson fire.

Exhausted from the day, jet lag and the cold (it is, after all,winter), our friend sees us off in Eminonu, promising to meet another day for the view from the mountain.

The next day we spend wandering the streets of Sultanahmet and at Istanbul’s archeological museum, where millennia of human habitation and creativity are on display.

If there is one thing that dominates your awareness in Turkey, it is history. Vast expanses of human history pervade the Anatolian landscape. The Tigris and Euphrates, those rivers of legend that cradled civilization, have their source high in the mountains of northeastern Turkey.

Evidence of humanity extends back 65,000 years! Civilization though, doesn’t begin until the Neolithic, around 8,000 B.C.E., when mankind evolved from its hunter-gatherer lifestyle and learned to cultivate crops and domesticate animals. The Anatolian Peninsula, which makes up the 97 percent of Turkey not in Europe, is chock full of Neolithic sites.

The Neolithic was only the beginning. Cities sprang up. Bronze replaced stone, iron replaced bronze. Armies conquered. Empires grew, clashed and disappeared time after time over the thousands of years before the Greek roots of our civilization appeared.

The entire panoply of early civilization and much of the history of the past two millennia can be seen. So here, in two short days, I experience a summation of my book: the incredible warmth and hospitality of a Muslim culture firmly rooted in history.

Before I really get to work though, we’ll escape winter and head south to Israel, returning in a few weeks to southern Turkey, where spring will have begun.

Dennis Jones is a local professional photographer and writer. He and Yolanda Marshall are traveling in the eastern Mediterranean. To see more photos, visit his blog at www.dreamcatcherimaging.com.

via Istanbul is wearing its history on its sleeve | VailDaily.com.

March 3, 2013
Wish You Were Here: A Ferry Boat on the Bosphorus

New York has its Staten Island Ferry, Venice the Vaporetto and Bangkok the Chao Phraya River Bus, but no city ferry line seems quite as regal as that of Istanbul.

Last night, we hopped a Vapur (the name for these old ferries) for the first time, traveling from the docks at Eminönü near the Spice Market to about 25 minutes up the Bosphorus to Ortaköy, a neighborhood just before the towering Bosphorus Bridge. Though a private water taxi charges 120 Lira ($67 USD) for a one-way ride between these points, sharing the ferry means a far budget friendlier cost of only 3 Lira ($1.67) each way.

The ferries themselves are ridiculously impressive, with their white bows looking just as ready for a transatlantic crossing as a trip between two docks. The funnels spew black smoke under raw power, and the maneuvering skills of the captains are on full display during evening rush hour near the Galata Bridge.

Vapur sizes vary, with maximum occupancy ranging from 600 to as high as 2100. Ferries like this have sailed the Bosphorus since 1837; they may have changed from steam power to fuel, but they remain an integral part of the population’s daily commute. And frankly we wouldn’t want it any other way.

A ferry docked for the night nearby the Bosphorus Bridge between Europe and Asia

[Photos: Cynthia Drescher/Jaunted]

via Wish You Were Here: A Ferry Boat on the Bosphorus || Jaunted.

March 1, 2013
What I Learned about Localization in Turkey

What I Learned about Localization in Turkey

Summary: I never appreciated the importance of local implementation until I was a wayward tourist crammed onto a bus to Istanbul.

By Diarmuid Mallon for ÜberMobile | February 28, 2013 — 06:00 GMT (22:00 PST)

When visiting Turkey a couple years ago, I wanted to get off the beaten tourist track. So, I went up the Bosporus on the regular commuter ferry toward the Black Sea. I got almost all the way to the top, and had a wonderful lunch at a small town.

My ferry trip along the Bosporus

To get back to Istanbul, I got on a local bus and paid the driver. Off we went. Within a few more stops, the bus was past standing room only. By the time we got to town, it was like a Guinness Book of Records contest for how many people could possibly pack onto the thing.

There were two doors on the bus—one in front, and one in back—but you had to pay up front. I’d paid the driver in cash, but the locals all had these electronic tags that they swiped on a reader right next to him. By the time the bus had filled to what looked like capacity, the only way to get on was through the rear doors. When passengers got on through the back door, they passed their tags up through the aisle of the bus, hand to hand, to the front where someone scanned it for them and passed it back the same way. It was funny and beautiful. (And I marveled at how honest everyone was, considering the circumstances.)

Here’s the real moral of the story: imagine I’m a coder in Silicon Valley, California. I’m creating a service for busing companies around the world. I have no idea how people do things in Istanbul or most of the rest of the world. Chances are, any specifics I create are going to be wrong.

Really, what we need are global solutions—platforms—that enable local implementation that reflects particular market requirements. If I hadn’t ridden that bus in Turkey, I would have never been able to dream up the right solution. That’s why it’s so important to open up the application programming interface (API) to allow for local solutions.

That’s exactly what my employer, SAP, is doing with its Mobile Platform. And within that, we’re launching the SAP Mobile Academy, an online resource full of code, videos and other technical documents that help simplify development on the SAP Mobile Platform. We want a million different developers working on our software. They’ll each come up with new and innovative solutions to problems we never knew existed.

Topic: UberMobile

About Diarmuid Mallon

Diarmuid Mallon is Lead Global Mobile Marketing Programs for SAP, which includes the SAP Mobile Services division and SAP Mobile solutions. He has worked in the mobile industry since 1996. Follow him here at UberMobile and @diarmuidmallon.

via What I Learned about Localization in Turkey | ZDNet.

March 1, 2013