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Istanbul is World’s Number 7 Convention City

Published by Ozgur Tore

Sunday, 15 May 2011 15:15

While upward trend of meetings and conventions to Istanbul continues, the city continues to better its position in the global ranking.

iccaIstanbul which was the world’s 17th destination at the International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA) rankings with 80 congresses in 2009, achieved to enter Top 10 in 2010 while enjoying the 2010 European Culture Capital title.

Istanbul steadily continues to increase its position in the MICE industry by capturing the 7th position in the world and 6th position in the European ranking ahead of metropolises such as Lisbon, Amsterdam, and Sydney.

Ranking | City | Number of Congresses

——————————-

1 Vienna 154

2 Barcelona 148

3 Paris 147

4 Berlin 138

5 Singapore 136

6 Madrid 114

7 Istanbul 109

8 Lisbon 106

9 Amsterdam 104

10 Sydney 102

Elif Balci Fisunoglu Evaluating the ICCA results, General Manager of Istanbul Convention & Visitors Bureau; Mrs. Elif Balcı Fisunoğlu said, “Obviously this was something we expected, ICCA is gathering information from many sources to create this ranking. When we created the list of congresses in the city, we expected that those numbers will rank us in the top 10 this year. Each year in February, we sent information of congresses our members hosted and organized in the city to ICCA. Cooperation of our industry with us to share that information is very important. Istanbul is an international convention destination approved by the authorities of MICE industry. Today, congresses such as AIDS, Cardiology, and Rotary are planning to be held in Istanbul; this is a proof of Istanbul’s popularity as being one of the top convention destinations of the world”.

“In the early 2000s, Istanbul entered the listing from the 40th place with 20 congresses annually. In the last 10 years, with a rapidly increase in number of congresses in the city, positioned Istanbul in the Top 10. Undoubtedly, ICVB’s role at presenting and promoting the city as a convention city abroad, studies done by DMCs, presence of national associations and institutions in the international arena, internationally recognized convention centers and hotels and their high quality services played a major role at positioning Istanbul one of the world’s leading convention cities” added Mrs. Fisunoğlu.

According to the ICCA Statistics report, Turkey ranked world’s 20th and Europe’s 12th with 160 congresses. USA ranked at first place with 623 congresses followed by Germany with 542 congresses. Spain with 451 congresses and UK with 399 congresses follows Germany.

The annual ICCA “International Association Meetings Market” statistics present an in-depth evaluation of trends in the international meetings industry. The association conventions reviewed by the ICCA must have at least 50 attendees, be regular events and take place alternately in at least three different countries. Founded in 1963, the International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA) is based in Amsterdam and has been collecting data on association events world-wide since 1972

via focus on travel news

May 16, 2011
Turkey Becomes the 7th Biggest Tourism Destination of the World

Turkey has become the 7th biggest tourism destination of the world.

The World Tourism Organization based in Spanish capital Madrid said that Turkey which drew some 27 million tourists in less than a decade became the world’s 7th biggest tourism destination behind France, the USA, Spain, the People’s Republic of China, Italy and the United Kingdom.

World Tourism Organization Marketing Director Michel Julian told the A.A that there was an annual increase of 2.2 percent in number of tourists visiting Mediterranean countries between 2000 and 2009, adding that countries such as France, Spain, Italy and Greece suffered a decline following the global financial crisis.

He said that Turkey, on the contrary, reached an annual increase of 12 percent in the same period and became a leading country in the Mediterranean region.

Julian said that Turkey increased number of tourists to 25 million in 2009 from 9 million in 2000, adding that increase in number of tourists visiting Turkey would continue in 2011.

Saturday, 14 May 2011

A.A.

May 15, 2011
Turkish Airlines supports Culture and Arts in Istanbul

Published by Ozgur Tore

Tuesday, 10 May 2011 21:13

The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts Official Airline will be Turkish Airlines (THY) for three years as from 2011.

The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts which through its festivals and events has been taking and important role in Istanbul’s culture and art life for thirty nine years and Turkish Airlines, one of the most important airline companies worldwide, signed an important collaboration. Becoming the Official Airline of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, Turkish Airlines will contribute to making IKSV’s events reach a wider audience and be promoted more effectively at home and abroad for three years.

In order to announce the detail of the collaboration between the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts and Turkish Airlines, two leading institutions in their own fields, a press conference was organized on Tuesday, May 10, at the X Restaurant on the top floor of IKSV. IKSV Chairman Bülent Eczacıbaşı and THY General Manager Temel Kotil participated as speakers in the press conference.

In the speech he made in the press conference, IKSV Chairman Bülent Eczacıbaşı emphasized that providing continuous and permanent interaction between national and international values through culture and arts is one of the main targets of IKSV and stated: “For this reason we organize festivals, biennials and events with international content and emphasize in our endeavours both in Istanbul and abroad that culture and arts know no boundaries. We are very glad to have Turkish Airlines which removes the boundaries between countries in a different sense among our official sponsors. As from 2011, Turkish Airlines will be the Official Airline of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts for three years. As two institutions targeting to turn Istanbul into a regional centre in their own branches, I believe that we will take important steps through our mutual support and our collaboration will bear positive and efficient results in both local and international levels.”

As for THY General Manager Temel Kotil, he remarked in his speech at the press conference: “Our support to IKSV carries a special meaning for us. It is a source of pride for us to become a sponsor of IKSV which has a great place in the development of culture and arts in Turkey and the worldwide promotion of Turkey.”

Following the speeches, IKSV Chairman Bülent Eczacıbaşı and THY General Manager Temel Kotil realized the beginning of the collaboration between IKSV and THY through the symbolic signing ceremony.

Through this important collaboration between the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts and THY, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, which endeavours to promote Turkey’s cultural and artistic production abroad and collaborates with international art institutions while organizing festivals in Turkey, will realize its projects abroad and at home in the upcoming period with the support of THY, now respected as a world brand.

THY will make a great contribution to the realization of festivals by providing certain conveniences in Europe and remote flight lines for the transport of guests of Istanbul Festivals.

Through special promotions at home and abroad, THY guests will have the opportunity to win tickets for festivals organized by IKSV. Also through special promotions and draws abroad, THY will fly the winners to Istanbul and host them at Istanbul Festivals.

Furthermore, THY will support the promotion abroad of Turkey’s variety in the musical field through jazz and classical music concerts planned to be realized in CIP lounges with the participation of Turkish musicians through the collaboration with IKSV:

THY will also make a very special collaboration with the Istanbul Biennial which, as the biggest contemporary art event of Turkey, positions Istanbul at the centre of international contemporary art agenda. By showing their Business Class Boarding Passes, THY passengers will be able to attend the 12th Istanbul Biennial to be realized between September 17 and November 13 this year free of charge.

Furthermore, through THY kiosks to be built at the suitable corners in Istanbul Festival venues, THY will constitute check-in and call-centres for the use of the festival’s local and foreign guests along with the festival audience.

By preparing special publicity films concerning Istanbul Festivals broadcasting them on the in-cabin screens, THY will inform its guests about Istanbul Festivals. Thereby, guests travelling by THY will be able to reach privileged and detailed information about IKSV events. SKYLIFE, the indispensable magazine for those travelling by THY for 27 years, will contribute to the promotion of IKSV events at home and abroad by giving place to special news concerning all the events of IKSV, interviews with the guests, and event calendars.

Moreover, it is planned to include in the THY in-flight entertainment system a selection of films shown in festivals after taking their copyrights along with a Turkish cinema selection. In this context, an important step will be taken for making the Turkish cinema reach international audience.

focus on travel

May 11, 2011
Istanbul Hotel Opens at Site of Al Qaeda Attack

By Ayla Albayrak

Mustafa Ozer/AFP/Getty Images The HSBC building in Istanbul after a terrorist attack in November 2003.

As the world was digesting news of Osama bin Laden’s death, Istanbul celebrated a symbolic victory over his terrorist network — a building al Qaeda bombed more than seven years ago reopened Monday as an upscale hotel.

In November 2003, an al Qaeda suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives in front of the building — then HSBC’s headquarters in Turkey — and detonated it, killing three HSBC employees and wounding scores of others. The blast was part of coordinated week-long attacks that also targeted Istanbul’s Jewish community and the British consulate, killing 63 people and injuring hundreds.

The HSBC building suffered massive damage. Glass and piles of rubble littered the street in the aftermath. Seven years and $150 million later, it reopened as the Istanbul Edition hotel, a monument to modern design with 77 rooms and a luxury suite. The renovation was funded by Azerbaijani businessman Mubariz Mansimov, the building’s owner. The result: one of Turkey’s most luxurious and expensive hotels, with prices starting at $600 a night, according to the hotel’s general manager Sedat Nemli.

The glitzy ceremony with Turkish celebrities and officials attending came a day after U.S. President Barack Obama said Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. covert operation in Pakistan.

“There is divine justice in the world,” Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertugrul Gunay said at the opening ceremony.

A former HSBC employee recalled that immediately after the terror attack of 2003 the bank quickly moved its headquarters to a secret location, where work continued as usual. The bank didn’t officially discuss the attack or its victims at the time. In 2007, HSBC placed a monument — a blood-red Dove of Peace — in front of its new Turkish headquarters to commemorate the victims.

Mr. Nemli, the hotel manager, said the hotel represents a new chapter for the building and is a fitting tribute to al Qaeda’s victims in Istanbul.

“The memory of the terrorist attacks wasn’t a problem to the investor or to us,” Mr. Nemli said referring to the hotel management. “This building stands at a site that saw a lot of pain, but it has now breathed new life into the city.”

via Istanbul Hotel Opens at Site of Al Qaeda Attack – Emerging Europe Real Time – WSJ.

May 6, 2011
Topkapi Palace

Between the Golden Horn and the Marmara Sea, with an incredible view of the Bosforo, sits the Topkapi Palace . Built by order of the Sultan Mehmed II a few years after the final collapse of the Byzantium, it was the centre of administration for the Ottoman empire for the following four centuries – until 1853, and the Christian era, when the Sultan Abdulmecid decreed that the headquarters move to the modern Dolmabahçe Palace.

topkapi istanbul

Today, the Topkapi Palace is a museum dedicated to those far away glory years of the Ottoman Empire, and which houses some of the most magnificent treasures in the world. Visitors who wander the vast and winding spaces are often grateful for a tourist guide to show them the Pearl room for example, which holds the Topkapi head, embellished with precious stones, gold and emeralds – or the room which displays the famous Indio-Turkish throne from the 18th century.

But one thing we would advise you not to miss out on is the extraordinary collection of talismanic shirts, made famous recently thanks to the publication in Istanbul of Hülya Tezcan’s Las Camisas Mágicas del Palacio de Topkapi.

In Turkish culture, great importance has always been placed on magical practice – whether aesthetic or ritual – as a lesson for the future, from coffee, to the summoning of the omnipresent Turkish eye, or nazar to cast curses. Tezcan’s book speaks of the power of the talismanic tops to make the fighter invisible in battle, to protect from evil, to maintain good health and aid fertility. The latter was the case with the powerful Sultana Nurbanu – worried by the succession to the throne in the Somali house (which governed the Ottoman empire for 700 years) of her son, Murad III. At the time of coronation, Murad only had one son, and 14 years later – due allegedly to the magical garment, which was lined with verses from the Koran and various astrological signs, the sultan had produced 19 boys.

In Tuzcan’s opinion, with the restoration of many of the pieces, the clothes – which were worn by every member of the court – “allow us to evaluate to what extent the superstitions of the Ottoman court affected the politics of the empire.”

Paul Oilzum Only-apartments AuthorPaul Oilzum

The Sultan’s shirts required three years of work – and only at the end were chosen verses from the Koran inscribed. It’ll take you much less time to marvel over them when you rent apartments in Istanbul

via Topkapi Palace Istanbul.

May 6, 2011
Istanbul not Constantinople

TOM MITCHELSON

THERE are scores of people queuing inside Hagia Sophia, a magnificent museum in the ancient city of Istanbul.

They are lining up to touch the perspiration of an angel. They believe that hundreds of years ago the cherub was imprisoned in a column and his sweat slowly drips out of a small hole.

A man standing next to me tells me that the wetness is simply caused by a crack in the marble and he doesn’t think the ‘sweat’ will cure infertility or diseases of the eye, as legend has it. I’m worried about the former, but I don’t believe in the cure, so I make my way to the central part of the building.

Hagia Sophia was built in the sixth century and intended to be the greatest church in the world. Its size, giant dome and mosaics would make this the case today, if it hadn’t been converted into a Mosque nearly a thousand years after it was built, and then later into a museum.

I have always wanted to come to Istanbul, largely because as a child I liked a song called “Istanbul (not Constantinople)” and was eager to know why the confusion. It’s a historic city that’s had a number of name changes down the centuries. It’s been Constantinople, Byzantium and in 1922 became Istanbul. I had also heard how it was the only city in the world that straddles two continents.

This is how I find myself looking out of my hotel window in Europe and staring out across the choppy waters of the Bosphorus to watch some people having dinner in a pavement café in Asia.

I’m staying at the Hilton Istanbul, which I discover is a historic hotel. It dates from 1955 and was a magnet for Hollywood film stars, heads of state and members of royal families. Among its guests were Frank Sinatra, Brigette Bardot, Sophia Loren and Grace Kelly, and it still maintains a certain air of grandeur.

But time for some serious sightseeing. I head to the Basilica Cistern, also known as the Sunken Palace and famous as a background artist in the James Bond film, From Russia With Love. This is a huge underground chamber that used to store water for the city.

The marble columns supporting the massive stone ceiling, and the atmospheric lighting, make the cistern look a bit like a five star hotel lobby that’s had a problem with its drains. The whole building can hold 17million gallons of water, but now there’s just enough water for hundreds of carp to frolic in. Towards the back of the cistern are two blocks of stone with the face of the mythical creature, Medusa, carved into them. One has been placed upside down and the other on its side. This is to avert their gaze, which mythology claimed would turn human beings to stone. Looking around at the scores of mobile tourists it seems to be working.

It is not hard to see why this city was awarded the European City of Culture title last year. Perhaps the most interesting attraction is the Topkapi Palace, for centuries home to the city’s rulers. It houses a collection of beautiful, precious jewel-encrusted exhibits to rival the British crown jewels and has magnificent views of the Bosphorus and Sea of Marmara.

There’s also the Harem (bear in mind you have to pay separately for this part of this palace). This building is a series of inter connecting tiled rooms, some with lattice shutters to keep out prying eyes, and others with beautiful stained-glass windows and elaborately painted ceilings. It is here the Sultan of the day would indulge his fantasies surrounded by his 300 or so concubines, who were supervised by eunuchs. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Exquisite

I spent nearly four hours wondering around this exquisite Palace and the only room I avoid is the ‘circumcision room’, because I didn’t like the name.

It’s quite easy to get mosque fatigue in Istanbul but one you shouldn’t miss out on is the Blue Mosque, directly opposite Hagia Sofia. Here the faithful are still called five times a day, as they have been for centuries. Having transferred my shoes to a plastic bag I make my way into the hallowed place of worship. 20,000 blue tiles line the domed building. My nostrils are assailed by the aroma of hundreds of sweaty socks, but this still can’t detract from the majesty of the design.

I am informed by an attendant that the upper levels are for the women worshippers. When I ask him why the separation, he tells me when women bend over to pray, men’s minds may wander from God.

Digesting the searing accuracy of this remark I make my way to the Grand Bazaar, which has been there for nearly 600 years. It is a labyrinth of streets and over 5,000 shops. This is where you’ll literally find more carpets than you can bargain for. The vendors are respectful and don’t hassle you, although they might invite you in for a cup of tea, and in my case, ask whether I could look after the shop for ten minutes.

Istanbul has always sounded exotic to me and as I gaze out across the city skyline, with a heat haze hanging above the minarets and the call to prayer echoing against the walls of modern office blocks and mixing with dance music from the many bars in the city centre, I realise it’s not quite the mystic east as I imagined it at the age of eight, but it is a city with a noble and compelling history.

via Istanbul not Constantinople | The Sun |Travel.

May 5, 2011