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Turkey Strikes Back |
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With 3000 years of visible history and
unsurpassed natural beauty, Turkey will be a major tourist attraction for a
long time to come. Aaron Langmaid reports.
It may be positioned in one of the more unstable regions of the world, but
Turkey has never really had a problem attracting visitors to its shores.
National customs and culture have long proven the draw card needed to entice
adventurous antipodeans and other tourists keen to experience a state and
people far removed from their own.
But as the nation’s tourism staggered through a turbulant period as a result
of the recent Iraq war, the attack on British interests in Istanbul last
November caused a more dramatic decline. Tourist numbers plummeted amid
warnings from western governments to stay away and Turkish tour operators
were left to pick up the pieces.
But almost five months since the bombings, Turkey’s tourism industry is
pinning its hopes on Hollywood to bring travellers back. The new Brad Pitt
film, Troy, based on the battle for Turkey’s ancient city, could just prove
to be the perfect advertising campaign.
 “We’ve
seen it happen before so we are hoping it will turn things around,” Troy
expert and guide Mustafa Askin said. “In 1975 a French film was released and
it had much the same affect. There was a huge rise in the number of French
tourists coming to Turkey.
“The affects of war and terrorism had a tremendous impact on visitor
numbers. It’s frustrating that one bomb is capable of destroying the tourism
market for an entire country.”
Australian backpacker Caroline Fountain, 25, was one of hundreds of
backpackers to cancel trips at the time.
“Our families were immediately concerned when we said we had booked to go,”
Caroline said. “But after the attack it was virtually impossible to get
insurance for our trip. Nobody seemed prepared to take the risk and in the
end, neither were we.”
But private operators in Turkey which had previously omitted Troy from tour
itinerary, have been quick to re-include it with the expectation travellers
inspired by the film will start booking flights.
 Ironically,
what remains of more than nine layers of the ancient city of Troy is largely
unimpressive. Visitors will find a dark one-room museum detailing the
history of the site and a path to lead them around exposed ruins and other
sparse remains. It’s hardly a reflection of what once was the most powerful
and wealthy cities in its time.
Fortunately, the tourism industry isn’t relying on celluloid alone to
rejuvenate its visitor numbers. Americans are now being encouraged to visit
central Turkey’s Cappadocia region through a Florida-based multi-media
campaign. Marketing manager Gürsel Isik has been working with over 180
villages in a campaign which is already showing signs of success. Cappadocia
is being sold as a travel alternative for small groups, something he says
the US market has taken a liking to since 2001.
“Americans no longer want to travel with large groups,” Isik said. “They
feel far more secure when the groups are smaller.
“We want to put in place a program to deliver our culture and customs to
outsiders and it doesn’t matter what nationality they are but it seems to be
working best in the US.”
But it’s not like experiencing central Turkey was ever a hard sell. This is
a region like none on earth.
 Thousands
of years of history have been entombed in its underground cities and castles
carved into sandstone cliffs and valleys, providing a backdrop for numerous
films including sequences in the original Star Wars trilogy. The people who
still live here seem to have retained much of their diverse culture and
customs which might otherwise have been lost in a deluge of peak season
tourism.
“There is an overall responsibility for tour operators, guides and locals,”
Isik said “to ensure visitors learn as much as they want about Cappadocia’s
history and traditions without losing it. It’s far too important to us to
allow that to ever happen.”
After recently finishing a successful stint at TNT Magazine, London, Aaron
Langmaid has worked as a freelance travel writer.
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