Home | Travel | Air Travel

Turkey Aims for Tourism Gold

By: Mark Bartley


Read More About Air Travel

In sporting competition, the occasions are seldom when you find yourself at peak fitness with your opponents suffering under various ailments and the conditions under which you are being asked to compete leaning heavily in your favour. But that's the situation for Turkey's flourishing travel industry and things just seem to be getting better and better. While the rest of Europe has seen falling visitor numbers, general economic conditions proving slow to recover and many travel-related firms struggling after several years of healthy operation, the key destinations in southern Turkey have been quietly getting on with making their mark in the travel world. Those factors which have allowed Turkey to continue its resort development with both foreign and local investment may still be getting better so expect Turkey to become an even bigger player over future years. Many of the world's premier hotel chains now have major operations in the region and aim to reap the rewards of the predicted increases in visitor numbers over the years to come.

So why is this happening to Turkey? Well the global recession may seem an unlikely factor but the troubles that have affected other economies have had a relatively mild impact in Turkey. So while more well known destinations in other parts of Europe have been slowly inching up their prices to soak up the affluent Western European's budgets, Turkey has remained quite affordable. That price difference was not a major attraction until very recently when the spending power of the average European traveller took a major hit. That brought Turkey's offerings into the spotlight and for holidaymakers from countries outside the Eurozone, the strength of the Euro currency also made places like Spain, and Portugal relatively more expensive than in the past. Even though there are experts who predict the Euro/Sterling position to retreat back in favour of the British traveller soon, most people are booking summer holidays now and so it is largely irrelevant. That makes Turkey, which has its own currency still, quite immune from these exchange rate factors.

Turkey also the benefit of a great travel infrastructure, with several airports positioned along its southern and south-western coastline, reducing transfer times to most major resorts to an hour or less. The coastline here is almost 1000 miles long, so a range of convenient arrival points is seen as crucial by the authorities if long airport to resort journeys are to be avoided.

Climate, or weather, is always an influence when decisions about where to holiday are being made and Turkey has no issues here, with fantastic summers almost guaranteed. During the main summer months of May to September the weather in southern Turkey couldn't be better. Hardly any rain, clear blue skies and warm sea temperatures can be expected. If anything the temperatures can get a little too high for some people, but they are not as extreme as places like North Africa can become during the height of summer.

Beaches, beaches, beaches. No holiday area would stand a chance of attracting significant levels of visitors without plenty of golden sandy beaches and here also Turkey does not disappoint.

For those who need more than just long lazy days on the beach there are also attractions in this part of Turkey to keep people occupied. Ancient history can be seen all over Southern Turkey and many of the region's most amazing attractions are the well preserved remains of past civilisations. The Ottoman houses of Antalya are wonderful but one of the highlights for many is to witness a live performance at the Aspendos Amphitheatre, a 20,000 seat Roman construction that looks just the way it must have done almost 2000 years ago. It is widely regarded as the world's best preserved ancient theatre.

So with the team playing with full vigour, the opposition on the back foot and a strong tailwind at their backs, team Turkey really has nothing to stop it scoring some significant goals this summer. We expect to see Turkey build a permanent position at the head of the European travel league.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Mark suggests that with flights to Antalya being provided from many UK departure points UK tourists will make up large proportion of visitors to Turkey this season.

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Air Travel Articles Via RSS!

counter easy hit

Powered by Article Dashboard