Impressions of Turkey from a correspondent of The Day
In the latter half of April a large group of Ukrainian journalists from Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Lviv, Lutsk, and Ivano- Frankivsk set off on an extensive tour of Turkey’s resorts and historical sites. The trip was aimed at familiarizing the journalists, and through them the Ukrainian public at large, with Turkey’s natural, cultural, and artistic landmarks, and the way the travel and recreation industry is run there. Given the fact that Ukraine and Turkey share the Black Sea and have a similar coastal climate, and that both countries have faced problems in their European aspirations, a closer look at how Turkey attracts Western tourists to its resorts proved edifying. The tour was made possible by the Turkish Embassy in Ukraine, Ukraine’s Honorary Consul in Antalia Ayhan Sarac, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry press service, the Turkish and Ukrainian travel agencies Yunaitour and Ukrferrytour, the municipal authorities of Antalia, the Ukrferry Shipping Company, and the Association of Ukrainian Ship Owners.
We have not yet fully realized that we are close naval neighbors with Turkey (the Zaporozhian Cossacks understood this only too well); that Ukraine and Turkey share the Black Sea coastline; and that a flight to Istanbul is a lot closer than, say, St. Petersburg. For us this is the shortest way to the Mediterranean and Asia Minor with their centuries-long history. As the governor of the Province of Anatolia says, today there are no disagreements between Ukraine and Turkey. The main problem, though, is the vast untapped possibilities for cooperation between the two countries. (The current trade turnover between Ukraine and Turkey stands at 2.5 billion US dollars, most of which comes from sources other than the so-called shuttle traders).
On two continents. Turkey straddles two continents, Asia and Europe, which determines the two faces of its society: on the one hand, it is connected to the Eastern Muslim world and, on the other, to the West, through its aspirations of joining the EU and its membership in NATO, which cultivate Western standards of living, education, and business. Until recently, a female doctor could not touch the body of a male patient, and only persons of the same sex could sit side by side on buses, planes, and streetcars. Today these customs are a thing of the past, especially in large cities, especially since most young people are pursuing their education in Western, mostly German, universities.
For the contemporary Ukrainian Turkey remains a terra incognita. What do we know about it? Islam, sharia, and cheap goods, which are the source of income for our shuttle traders, come to mind. Some people think that all that Turkey manufactures is shoddy underwear, leather clothing, and the like. Nothing could be further from the truth. For example, Turkey is Europe’s leading manufacturer of cars, complete with Japanese engines. On Turkey’s superb roads you will hardly ever see an old clunker of a bus or car: every vehicle looks as though it came straight from the factory.
The major cities are filled with multitudes of beautiful people, especially women, as well as polyglots, who have at least a superficial command of several languages (German, English, Russian), the result of a rapidly growing travel industry and large numbers of foreign tourists. There is another reason. Turkey is now home to 3.5 million Germans and a steadily growing number of German companies, owing to the fact that Turkey is an attractive investment haven.
The resort area of Antalia is 640 kilometers of coastline featuring over 1,000 mostly five-star hotels, which can lodge up to 350,000 vacationers. Last year five million tourists out of a total twelve million Europeans who vacationed in Turkey visited this area. This year Antalia expects six million. Despite the war in Iraq and the threat of terrorism, Turkish hotels are almost filled to capacity. (Spanish and Italian resorts have been significantly affected by the wave of terrorism). Tourism pours an annual six billion US dollars into Turkey’s coffers.
Whereas Turkey’s Mediterranean coast features resorts that have been known and visited for several centuries, Antalia’s charms were discovered only twenty years ago. Before that, few outside Turkey were familiar with this area. As the Ukrainian journalists learned from Ukraine’s Ambassador to Turkey Ihor Dolhov, a breakthrough in Turkey’s travel industry occurred when the government created very favorable business conditions, which is a common practice in the international tourist and recreation industry.
Antalia is a flourishing resort area in the process of rapid expansion and development, luring tourists with its first-rate roads, green plantations, blooming roses, beautifully crafted fountains, and clear blue pools. (But visitors will not see such unparalleled, ancient parks as the ones in Crimea’s Alupka or Massandra, true masterpieces of park design). Moreover, the Turks do not scrimp on advertising: they have an advertising budget of one billion US, while Ukraine spends a mere $180,000. Turkey attracts mostly Germans and CIS citizens, the latter still known here as “Russians,” accounting for 45% of vacationers. I think that unless Ukrainians begin speaking Ukrainian at home, they will always be known as Russians abroad. So there is no point in complaining about ignorant foreigners.
One of Antalia’s attractions is its image of safety. Statistically, the city boasts the world’s lowest crime rate, and, incidentally, the police chief is a woman. As a rule, plainclothes officers patrol the city, maintaining an invisible presence everywhere and at all times, a fact known to all potential criminals. Combined with severe sharia punishments for stealing, this ensures virtually complete safety for foreigners. That’s why you can often hear the saying, “A Turk never takes what doesn’t belong to him.” Expatriates of the CIS say that in Antalia everyone, including women, feels safe at any time of the day. In villages and towns, groceries and supplies are normally delivered before dawn, when everybody is still asleep, and left outside near customers’ front doors. Nothing ever goes missing. Even though cars are parked for the night without antitheft alarms and are not locked up in garages, almost no car thefts are reported.
Another attraction of Antalia is its relatively cheap prices. So it is no surprise that hotels are almost filled to capacity during the holiday season. It is worth noting that, unlike Ukraine, hotels in Turkey are much cheaper for foreigners than for Turks. The government and hotel owners understand that the main thing is to attract foreign capital and tourists, who leave their money here. Ukraine’s hotel business pursues a different policy. In Ukraine, foreigners pay several times more for the same kinds of services. One gets the impression that this is done specifically to make these people feel that they never want to come back to Ukraine. I met many visitors in Kyiv and the Crimea, who were not only offended by such discrimination but also refused to understand it.
Antalia’s rapidly developing hotel industry has led to some fundamental changes. Aging and impoverished townships have given way to typical two or three-story cottages housing a huge army of hotel personnel. Unlike Central Asian settlements, in which family life is secluded from the street behind a wall, Turkish village houses are completely open to neighbors and the street. Everything is open to view, much like in Ukraine. Yet, these settlements are almost devoid of greenery and flowers that are commonly seen in other Mediterranean cities and in Ukraine.
Antalia’s resorts profit not only from excellent service, cheap and luxurious conditions, but also from picturesque natural surroundings. Beautifully outlined mountains (over 3,500 meters) descend to the sea, their snow-clad mountaintops glistening despite the warm sea below. Old stone bridges span breathtaking ravines, and a mountain river bisects the city, cascading into the sea in high and turbulent waterfalls.
Hotels. The Ukrainian journalists had a chance to compare and evaluate the features of several hotels (Lares Park, Letonia Belek, Adonis, and Greenwood, to mention just a few), most of them built two to five years ago. As a rule, turnkey construction of such hotels takes no more than two years with a payback period of ten years. Mostly Turkish contractors build hotels, but occasionally Spanish specialists are brought in. As a rule, the owner pays 40% of the construction costs with the remaining 60% covered by a government loan. Incidentally, the Turks complain about unstable hotel industry taxes, which vary between 18% and 40% depending on the season.
Turkey’s seafront zone is government property and cannot be sold to private owners. Hotels normally lease sections of beach land from the government for a maximum of forty-nine years. But even this fact does not prevent hotels from fitting out their beaches with amazing conveniences and creating an endless recreation zone along the coastline.
Most hotels can accommodate between 1,000 and 1,500 vacationers, who are waited on by a staff of 300 to 350. All hotel employees are dressed neatly, no matter what their function. Many have university diplomas. Hotel services are maintained at a high level, arguably the only way to win clients in the face of tough competition from European resorts.
At a meeting with Antalia’s city fathers we were told that some of Ukraine’s western oblasts, for example, Ivano-Frankivsk, are planning to send trainees to learn the Turkish way of running the hotel business. Ukraine’s consul in Turkey Ayhan Sarac is promoting such professional exchanges in every possible way.
Ecology. For nearly twenty years now, Antalia has enjoyed the blue-flag status that UNESCO awards for keeping the environment clean, especially its coastal waters. “We cherish Antalia’s nature like our own eyes,” provincial governor Aladdin Yuksel told our journalists. The seawater is indeed very pure and clear, which makes the seabed seem shallow. But you can’t reach it when you dive. Its cleanliness was especially striking after our recent visit to Odesa, where swimming is banned at many of the famous beaches. In Antalia, both the city fathers and hotel owners, whose special scientific council constantly monitors water quality and hires independent experts, are protecting the environment.
Tourists are amazed at how the locals treat turtles, which have come to symbolize Turkey’s environmental safety. Antalia is home to special turtles that cross highways while migrating to a different place. Special turtle crossing signs marks these sections of road, where all cars slow down. Here I should mention the Marco Polo, a hotel with 1,400 beds, which was built in eleven months on the site of an ancient pine grove, with bungalows huddled among two and three-century old pines, something that most of us had never seen. The hotel is home to forty-six turtles, each marked with special paint. Should you wake up in the wee hours of the morning, you will be privileged to join these turtles in their morning stroll.
It is forbidden to cut down trees in resort areas. As the Turks like to say, it is better to cut off one’s arm than fell a tree. Rare species of trees bear special safety tags, and locals are even afraid to come near them. (When I heard this, I thought of the plight of the Carpathian Mountains, where priceless beeches are felled en masse, with mountain slopes left completely treeless). It is no wonder that travel agencies are resorting to all of this to lure customers — and why not?
In search of resources. Turkey’s tourism and resort industry is quite inventive in using all kinds of resources to attract tourists. For example, the past ten years have seen hotels mushrooming in mainland Turkey, 200 or 300 kilometers away from the coastline. Hotels are flourishing here despite the combination of harsh climate and barren soil. The scorching summer sun sears everything in sight, yet tourists keep coming, lured by the healing hot springs that the hotels use both for medicinal purposes and relaxation. Hotels are located in a fairytale setting of boiling pools, fountains, Turkish baths, saunas, Jacuzzis, nifty water slides for all ages, and massage salons. Vacationers have a wonderful time there, just the way it was in ancient Rome, where people gathered at public baths to socialize, philosophize, and write and read poetry. The healing waters are also pumped to bathrooms in the hotel rooms, which add to the feeling of constant, pleasurable healing, purification, and rejuvenation. Ukraine’s Ambassador to Turkey Ihor Dolhov says the Turkish government has passed a special resolution on the economic benefits that are generated by thermal hotels, including tax perks, government loans, investment, etc.
The Turkish tourism industry is also resourceful with archaeology. After all, Turkey is the land where history began many centuries ago, with countless fascinating relics of past civilizations still hidden in its soil. Standing on the streets of Antalia are fortress towers, the gates of Emperor Adrian, the walls of Constantine the Great, all dating back to the Roman Empire. Interestingly enough, both the government and the hotel industry sponsor archaeological research, since any archaeological digs and discoveries are a magnet for foreigners, especially German tourists. Such finds make good exhibits in museums or elements of hotel interior design.
Crimea vs. Antalia. While I was in Turkey, I could not help thinking about the Crimea. I kept comparing the two resorts. Call me biased, but nature in Antalia is no match for Crimea’s picturesque setting: pine-covered mountains looming above the sea, countless blue lagoons, ancient castles, their walls and columns clad in blooming wisteria, and lush, classical parks. My personal favorite-the unparalleled Crimean mountain pastures with their mesmerizing moonlit landscapes, caves shrouded in mystery, meadows strewn with colorful mountain flowers in early springtime, before the winter snows have disappeared. Besides, Crimea’s climate is way more favorable to recreation than Antalia’s. The Crimea has never known the scorching heat of Turkey, where summer highs exceed forty degrees Celsius, with sea temperatures above thirty-five.
Unfortunately, in many other respects the Crimea cannot compare to its Turkish counterpart. It has taken Antalia very little time to be transformed from a small township into a gigantic, modern tourist and recreation center, to earn a solid reputation as an international tourist venue, and lure quite a number of tourists from established European resorts. Meanwhile, for the past ten to fifteen years the Crimea has been the scene of a permanent redistribution of real estate, with pricey seafront lands the subject of fierce disputes. New hotels are being built, but on a small scale, while old ones are slowly crumbling to pieces for lack of adequate renovations. Moreover, hotel service has not changed much since the Soviet period. Granted, there are exceptions, in the form of a few upscale hotels. But their small number and high prices put quality recreation for Ukraine’s emerging middle class rather out of reach.
The business of advertising Ukrainian resorts abroad also leaves much to be desired. For example, Austria spends an annual 130 million euros on its recreational advertising, Great Britain eight million pounds, Turkey almost seventy million US dollars , while Ukraine spends a mere seventeen million hryvnias, twenty times less than Turkey.
When we were en route to Antalia, we were told that a major Turkish company was building a big hotel in Yalta, which will accommodate 3,000 tourists. This is undoubtedly a fine undertaking and the hotel will be a good one. But is Ukraine really short of builders?
