Outbound

Turkey all set to roll out the red-carpet for Indians

ETW Staff - Mumbai

Looking at the potential of the India market, Turkey recently set up a Turkish Culture and Tourism Office as a part of the Turkish Embassy in New Delhi, India. The office is headed by N Sevgi Boz, counsellor, culture & tourism and is part of the strategy to increase the number of Indian arrivals in Turkey from 45,000 in 2007 to 70,000 in 2008. According to Boz, "Turkey Tourism products, with their great diversity and alluring contrasts, are very strong and colourful, and even the seasoned leisure traveller will find some unique vacation experience in Turkey."

India is a new and very important emerging market for Turkey. In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of Indians visiting Turkey. This number has increased from 35,000 in 2006 to 45,000 in 2007. The primary focus of the culture and tourism office will be to work closely with the travel trade and the media to promote Turkish culture and tourism from India.

The number of visiting tourists to Turkey has increased from 1.2 million in 1980 to 21.2 million today. In 2005, Turkey was amongst the top 10 tourism destinations in the world, both in terms of revenue and the number of tourists. In the same period, tourism revenues grew to US$ 18 billion, 60 times as much as in 1980. As a result of this growth, tourism revenues have reached a total of 5.5 per cent of the GNP of Turkey. The European Union has declared Istanbul the European Cultural Capital for the year 2010.

"We share common cultural and traditional ties with India in treating all our guests as gifts from God and we look forward to welcoming a lot of Indian visitors in the future," says Boz.

With history spanning over 10,000 years, Turkey is frequently referred to as 'The world's largest open-air museum.' It has been home to 13 of the greatest civilisations known to mankind, a few of which are Hittite, Lycian, Persian, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. This kaleidoscope of civilisations is being continued through the present day vibrant and modern Turkey.

For the MICE segment, Turkey offers many unique experiential locations with excellent infrastructural facilities. Besides highly modern, well-equipped congress centre, nearly all the 5-star hotels in Turkey have necessary facilities to service medium to large congresses, meetings and incentive groups. These venues are located all over Turkey, in Istanbul, Antalya, Izmir and the Cappadocia region, amongst many other destinations.

Main cities of tourist interest in Turkey are Istanbul, Ankara (the capital city), Izmir, Konya, Adana, Antalya and Bursa.