According to UNWTO, Turkey is ranked sixth in the ‘Most visited destinations by international tourist arrivals’. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Republic of Turkey is tweaking its strategy to boost its tourism numbers. Recently, Turkey organised an eight city roadshow in India which witnessed a good turnout from the travel trade fraternity.
Speaking about the developments, E Sabri Ergen, Consul General, Turkish Consulate General for Mumbai said, “India is one of the most important source markets for us. In the past couple of months we have had a rough patch. Our numbers went down drastically. Now as the situation is all under control, we have seen the numbers going up steadily. Our aim is to first target the travel agents of India and reinstate the confidence in them that our country is safe. Turkey is still a safe destination, and we have taken extra measures to safeguard our tourists. Travellers won’t be affected by the coup.”
Speaking about the current situation of tourism in the country, Özgür Aytürk, Coordinator, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Republic of Turkey said, “There is no travel restriction in Turkey. As soon as the emergency was declared, it was announced that tourists are not subject to this. So tourists can visit freely to any place and the Government has made arrangements that tourists stay normally. We have the utmost security in Turkey. Terrorism has become a global issue; despite such events life is normal in Turkey. Unfortunately after the unrest, there was a decline in tourism. We have started seeing new bookings now, and hopefully by the end of the year we expect to see positive figures. We are expecting similar growth from India like last year. In some other international source markets we have also seen a 30 per cent decrease. Turkey was the sixth most popular destination in the world last year. Despite these unfortunate events we have received over 14 million travellers this year.
In 2015, Turkey had welcomed 131,869 tourists from India, but this year in the first seven months the country has received only 52,352 travellers with a dip of close to 10 per cent. To further promote the destination as a film tourism haven, Turkey will be the focus country in the upcoming MAMI Mumbai Film Festival which is to be held from October 20-27, 2016. Sabri added, “Film tourism is one segment we are seriously looking at. We are looking at a bilateral in film tourism. Some of the Turkish TV series are very well received by the Indian Audience. We will lead a delegation soon where we will bring our production houses and top CEOs to meet the Bollywood. We will be the focus country for the first time in the MAMI film festival, which will give a boost to our film tourism segment. Also, on September 30 we launched a Turkish Film which was shot in Mumbai. This will increase the bilateral tourism relationship.”
Immediately after the coup d’état situation, the Turkish Government had declared an emergency for three months effective from July 21, 2016. The emergency has not affected the tourists, as tourism is one of the priority segments for Turkey.
Turkey is now also focusing to tap the wedding segment from India. The destination is ready to cater to every need for an Indian wedding including Indian food and Jain food. Ergen added, “India is a huge market for the wedding segment. This year we had a huge Indian wedding in Turkey which was organised in Antalya. During this roadshow we have a lot of hotels who are aggressively looking to tap the potential of this segment.”
