As Turkey celebrates an expected boom tourism year with visitors hitting the 10 million mark, a leading tour operator say the country should be getting 20 million.
The International Federation of Tour Operators (IFTO), which caters for 55 million tourists, held one of its regular meetings in Antalya's Sheraton Hotel with representatives from the United Kingdom, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.
Martin Brackenbury, president of IFTO, held a news conference to outline Turkish tourism for this year and the future.
He said that for the first six months of the year all tourist market figures had improved, with the exception of the United Kingdom. He said: "We are hoping to see a further increase. At the end of the year, Turkey will have 10 million tourists."
However, the IFTO president described this number as unsatisfactory because Turkey is under performing greatly. He said there are more opportunities for growth in Turkey than in any country in the Mediterranean basin and with the right investment and proper marketing it would be possible to get 20 million visitors into Turkey.
"To justify this figure" he said, "the economic climate in the country has to be right". Brackenbury said that Turkey must motivate investors in apartment hotels because these hotels are seeing increased demand from many European countries apart from Germany.
He said that by regulations in Turkey, only 35 percent of hotel investment can be in hotel apartments, yet 90 percent of tourists from Scandinavia prefer this type of hotel. The statistics show that tourists who stay at normal hotels or holiday clubs spend an average of $200 dollars on outside activities while tourists staying at apartment hotels spend $300.
Brackenbury said that the investment level of foreign tour operators was still very low. He said that there were three main reasons for this. For more investment in Turkey by foreign tour operators, political stability, fewer bureaucratic obstacles and low inflation are essential.
He said that to invest in Turkey brought a higher earning potential but also carried greater risks other destination countries. He also stressed that an investor wants to know the average future inflation rate.
Brackenbury said that Turkish tour operators need to employ foreign staff because any tourist wants to be welcomed by people who speak his/her language and know tourists' real expectations at holiday destinations.
Germans fly in for the winter
While figures for tourism in Turkey are set to break all records this summer, an active publicity campaign mounted in Germany is set to bring 100,000 German tourists into Antalya this winter and break even more records, the Anatolian news agency reported.
According to Germany-based Oger Tours General Consultant Huseyin Baraner, Turkish tourism showed great enterprise in 2000 and this should continue into the winter season as well. "We have had 100,000 Germans sign up for holidays with us for October alone. Our winter sales have got off to a great start." He pointed out also that to date this year, they have brought over 482,000 German tourists into Turkey and that they expect this figure to exceed 800,000 by the end of the year.
Giving few facts and figures on Oger Tours, Baraner said they had been voted third best tour agency in Germany thanks to the quality of service and the number of destinations theyservice, and have become a household name for 75 percent of Germans. He added that the number of tour agencies in Germany selling trips to Turkey had increased from 8,000 to 11,000, and as a company they planned to host the top 900 agencies in Belek. – (Albawaba-MEBG)
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
