site.btaCould Greece and Turkey Become Partners in Tourism?
OL 19:23:32 08-12-2021
LG1921OL.113
113 INSIDE THE BALKANS - GREECE - TURKEY - TOURISM
Could Greece and Turkey
Become Partners
in Tourism?
Sofia, December 8 (Elena Drazheva and Nora Cholakova of BTA) - Tourism relations between Greece and Turkey do not deviate from the two Mediterranean states' traditionally complicated coexistence. However, the crisis caused by COVID-19 could just make the two rivals consider cooperation in an industry that is quite crucial for their economies.
Sharing natural resources and a historical heritage with neighboring Turkey, Greece has always competed with it in attracting tourists, regarding itself as a destination that offers a more costly but higher quality product.
Nowadays, though, the sector which is one of the main pillars of Greek economy is facing formidable challenges.
For a second year in a row, the Greek tourism business has had to tackle the consequences of an expanding pandemic. Sensing that the flow of tourists might cease, the Mitsotakis Government was among the first to request the introduction of a vaccination certificate for cross-border travel.
Then, even at the beginning of the year Athens came out with clear-cut health protocols for opening the tourist sector to foreign visitors.
This year's statistics about the number of tourists and revenues are encouraging, but Greece is already eyeing the future: planning an early start of the new season, promoting winter tourism, mulling a longer summer season, hoping to increase the flow of tourists from the large European markets, relying on a development of eco destinations, and even looking at Turkey as a possible partner rather than rival.
Earlier this month, Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias told a forum in Izmir that tourism is a field for cooperation between the two countries, in spite of their differences in other departments.
"We are living in difficult times, we have certain differences, but we have to agree that tourism and travel are a framework within which we can and could work even better, and cooperate," Kikilias added, pointing out that reciprocal trips by tourists from the two countries would boost revenue. His Turkish counterpart Mehmet Nuri Ersoy spoke on a similar note.
Both stressed the importance of promoting bilateral cooperation because the tourism industry in both countries has been badly hit by the pandemic crisis as well as by disastrous and widespread summer wildfires.
The idea of offering combined package tours for Greece and Turkey, capitalizing on the trend of tourists coming from distant countries visiting combined destinations, came to the fore along with obvious possibilities like increasing ferry and plane service frequencies from both Aegean coasts.
This comes as proof of the need to transform Greece's tourism industry in line with traveler attitudes, particularly in pandemic and economic crisis conditions.
"From now on, we want to focus on the strategy for promoting our cooperation in the Aegean region which attracts many tourists. And we should say that Greece is our partner, not our rival," Ersoy said.
Tourism in both countries has been sustaining severe consequences for a second year running. Because of the pandemic Russia, which is Turkey's largest incoming tourism market, stopped almost all flights in April. Flights and tourist trips were resumed only in July. A large part of the Russian tourists prefer Turkey as a holiday destination because of the visa-free entry, while Greece requires visas. Just as importantly, vacations in Turkey are cheaper than in Greece. After flights from Russia to Turkey were resumed, Turkish tour operators' business looked up.
Ersoy recently said that Turkey had been the first country in Europe to come up with the idea of a "safe tourism certificate" and had applied this programme very successfully.
In short, the tourism situation in Turkey is volatile. It was reported in September that the summer resorts, including "seaside holidays capital" Antalya, were experiencing a difficult season because of the slump in arrivals from Europe. This was mostly due to Turkey's listing among the high coronavirus risk countries. The tourism business executives said they would rely even more heavily on visitors from Russia, Ukraine and Central Asia.
Then, far more reassuring statistics were published in November: 21.1 million foreign tourists had visited Turkey in January-October, or 88 per cent up, year-on-year. A pleased Minister Ersoy said revenues could reach as much as 24 billion dollars this year.
Aziz Gungor of Global Ports Holding sees the bookings made by 650 cruise ships with 750,000 passengers for the Turkish Aegean resort Kusadasi for 2022 as "a sign that Turkey can expect an even better season". Some of these ships will probably come in from Greek ports - yet another form of Greek-Turkish cooperation in tourism. LN/BR/LG
//
LG1921OL.113
113 INSIDE THE BALKANS - GREECE - TURKEY - TOURISM
Could Greece and Turkey
Become Partners
in Tourism?
Sofia, December 8 (Elena Drazheva and Nora Cholakova of BTA) - Tourism relations between Greece and Turkey do not deviate from the two Mediterranean states' traditionally complicated coexistence. However, the crisis caused by COVID-19 could just make the two rivals consider cooperation in an industry that is quite crucial for their economies.
Sharing natural resources and a historical heritage with neighboring Turkey, Greece has always competed with it in attracting tourists, regarding itself as a destination that offers a more costly but higher quality product.
Nowadays, though, the sector which is one of the main pillars of Greek economy is facing formidable challenges.
For a second year in a row, the Greek tourism business has had to tackle the consequences of an expanding pandemic. Sensing that the flow of tourists might cease, the Mitsotakis Government was among the first to request the introduction of a vaccination certificate for cross-border travel.
Then, even at the beginning of the year Athens came out with clear-cut health protocols for opening the tourist sector to foreign visitors.
This year's statistics about the number of tourists and revenues are encouraging, but Greece is already eyeing the future: planning an early start of the new season, promoting winter tourism, mulling a longer summer season, hoping to increase the flow of tourists from the large European markets, relying on a development of eco destinations, and even looking at Turkey as a possible partner rather than rival.
Earlier this month, Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias told a forum in Izmir that tourism is a field for cooperation between the two countries, in spite of their differences in other departments.
"We are living in difficult times, we have certain differences, but we have to agree that tourism and travel are a framework within which we can and could work even better, and cooperate," Kikilias added, pointing out that reciprocal trips by tourists from the two countries would boost revenue. His Turkish counterpart Mehmet Nuri Ersoy spoke on a similar note.
Both stressed the importance of promoting bilateral cooperation because the tourism industry in both countries has been badly hit by the pandemic crisis as well as by disastrous and widespread summer wildfires.
The idea of offering combined package tours for Greece and Turkey, capitalizing on the trend of tourists coming from distant countries visiting combined destinations, came to the fore along with obvious possibilities like increasing ferry and plane service frequencies from both Aegean coasts.
This comes as proof of the need to transform Greece's tourism industry in line with traveler attitudes, particularly in pandemic and economic crisis conditions.
"From now on, we want to focus on the strategy for promoting our cooperation in the Aegean region which attracts many tourists. And we should say that Greece is our partner, not our rival," Ersoy said.
Tourism in both countries has been sustaining severe consequences for a second year running. Because of the pandemic Russia, which is Turkey's largest incoming tourism market, stopped almost all flights in April. Flights and tourist trips were resumed only in July. A large part of the Russian tourists prefer Turkey as a holiday destination because of the visa-free entry, while Greece requires visas. Just as importantly, vacations in Turkey are cheaper than in Greece. After flights from Russia to Turkey were resumed, Turkish tour operators' business looked up.
Ersoy recently said that Turkey had been the first country in Europe to come up with the idea of a "safe tourism certificate" and had applied this programme very successfully.
In short, the tourism situation in Turkey is volatile. It was reported in September that the summer resorts, including "seaside holidays capital" Antalya, were experiencing a difficult season because of the slump in arrivals from Europe. This was mostly due to Turkey's listing among the high coronavirus risk countries. The tourism business executives said they would rely even more heavily on visitors from Russia, Ukraine and Central Asia.
Then, far more reassuring statistics were published in November: 21.1 million foreign tourists had visited Turkey in January-October, or 88 per cent up, year-on-year. A pleased Minister Ersoy said revenues could reach as much as 24 billion dollars this year.
Aziz Gungor of Global Ports Holding sees the bookings made by 650 cruise ships with 750,000 passengers for the Turkish Aegean resort Kusadasi for 2022 as "a sign that Turkey can expect an even better season". Some of these ships will probably come in from Greek ports - yet another form of Greek-Turkish cooperation in tourism. LN/BR/LG
//
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