TURKEY

TURKEY

After last year’s earthquakes, Turkey is making a gradual recovery and operators are confident visitors will return.

A year on from the earthquakes that caused so many problems for Turkish tourism, the talk is still of gradual recovery.

Nevertheless, Turkish Tourist Office UKdirector Savas Kuce remains bullish – perhaps thanks to the promising figures returned by some of the country’s independent specialist operators.

“I am happy. There has been some negative press about Turkey but the figures are good,” he said.

For the first seven months of the year, visitor figures from the UK were up 11.4% on last year to 456,786. July figures were also up 24% year on yearto 144,000.

Of course, July last year was not the best month for Turkey – fears over Kosovo and violence from the Kurdish terrorist group the PKK had already started to affect bookings from the UK. But Kuce is confident Turkey will reach its target of 900,000 UK visitors this year overall.

“The signs of recovery are good after just one year,” he said.

Operator comment was mixed but an overall air of confidence prevailed.

Simply Travel product manager Ingram Casey said: “The recovery we have seen is quite different from what we expected at the beginning of the year – we thought it would be a year of consolidation, whereas in fact it was very difficult even to get flights in August. There is still availability in October but we think the interest is there.”

Although capacity was cut back for the summer, the full flights were seen as encouraging.

Casey added: “Without being snobbish, we are lucky to have the thinking end of the market; people who realise the earthquakes of last year were hundreds of miles from any of the tourist resorts and who book with confidence.”

He also suggested Turkey will benefit from people taking their first trip to the country now because prices have remained level with last year.

Tapestry sales and marketing manager Andrew Lee had mixed feelings about the country’s performance.

“We were significantly down year on year before Christmas but by March we had caught up,” he said.

“From the mainstream point of view though, operators are still concerned about overall volume. Ithink the mass market will take another two years to recover fully,” he added.

He also suggested this year’s overall visitor figures would probably be closer to 700,000 than 900,000.

Tapestry has taken a confident approach to the new season, offering properties in three new areas: Kekova, along the coast from Dalaman; Kolumbuk, which is about 30 minutes from Marmaris; and Kiya, a tiny village in the mountains above Fethiye.

Unijet general manager John Riley agreed that 2002 will be the year when growth is more likely.

“We thought this year was going to be strong with the recovery we saw at the start of the year but then Leeds were drawn against Galatasaray in the European Cup,” he said.

“Next year is likely to be stable, with possible growth in 2002. We are certain that it will come back in the long term,”he added.

The city-break market will also take some time to recover.

City-break specialist Travelscene said it expected a return to form but was surprised at the extent of its drop in fortunes.

At its worst, year-on-year bookings were down 70%, but are now closer to 40% down, according to chief executive Jo Montfort.

Key to the success of Turkey now, according to Anatolian Sky managing director and chairman of the Association of Specialist Turkish Tour Operators, Akin Koc, is keeping the pressure on the tourist office and travel agents.

“ASTO aims to get the TTO to begin its advertising campaign in the key booking period after Christmas, just like other Mediterranean countries,” he said.

“We want to maintain the help the tourist office has provided for fam trips and possibly extend it for help with other costs, such as brochure production.”

Like most operators, Koc was pleased to report that bookings were steadily picking up, although he conceded that a full recovery would take closer to three years.

Hot and steamy: visitors to Pamukkale often take time to visit the thermal pools