THE Turkish Tourism Board, in association with the Turkish Hoteliers Federation, is planning a five-city roadshow in India this November.
“The roadshow will most likely kick-start from November 11 and include cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. We expect participation from 30 members of the Turkish travel trade including hoteliers and travel consultants,” said Özgür Aytürk, culture and tourism counsellor, Turkish Embassy New Delhi.
On show at the roadshow will be Turkey’s various tourism products in segments such as weddings and honeymoons and golf tourism.
Apart from participating in major tradeshows, the tourism board is looking to launch an India-centric website and start an online training programme for Indian travel consultants. “We are presently working on the various modules of the online training programme,” revealed Aytürk.
Turkey has been working to significantly increase tourist arrivals from India, doubling its promotion budget for the market to US$2 million for 2013 (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 14, 2013).
Last year 91,000 Indians visited Turkey and the country’s tourism board expects growth of 25-30 per cent in arrivals for 2013.
When asked about the impact of the Gezi Park Protest in Istanbul on tourism, Aytürk admitted: “I don’t have the latest tourist arrival figures yet, but there may be a marginal effect on tourist arrivals in Istanbul.
“But we have other popular tourist destinations in Turkey. In fact, Antalya is our tourism capital. We are not witnessing any negative growth in other places.”
