TUI Türkiye pushes Turkish tourism sector forward
Posted by meb at March 15th, 2009
TUI Türkiye, the Turkish branch of TUI Travel PLC, one of the world’s leading international leisure travel groups, is fostering interest in the Turkish tourism industry by improving the quality and enhancing the content of its services, which explains the ever-rising demand for the company’s services from customers worldwide, even during the prevailing uncertainty that is mostly attributed to the ongoing global financial crisis.
As indicated by a recent report on the global tourism industry, the Turkish tourism sector made it through 2008 — a tough year for all — in excellent condition and is expected to continue to be a focus of attention for those seeking the perfect vacation at a reasonable price. The ITB World Travel Trends report — the end product of fruitful discussions held at the World Travel Monitor Forum, an annual convention of global tourism industry authorities — indicated that only two European countries, Turkey and Bulgaria, succeeded in securing an increase of more than 10 percent in inbound travel during the first three quarters of last year. During the same time period, the tourism industries of most developed economies, not only in Europe but throughout the world, faced great difficulties, not to mention the pessimistic outlook of tourism specialists for the foreseeable future.
Analyzing Turkey’s competitiveness
The dynamics that are believed to have led to the above-mentioned discrepancy between Turkey and the developed economies of the world in terms of their attractiveness to tourists have been studied by tourism experts. Analyzing these dynamics, one would say there are both external and internal factors that have an impact on the overall picture.
Among the externals, price competitiveness is at the forefront — a situation created by the comparative increase in the value of currencies of the developed world vis-à-vis the Turkish lira. This explains the difference between Turkey and the countries in the eurozone. However, whereas the US seems to have escaped the downturn by means of low value exhibited by the dollar, Japan, on the other hand, has not succeeded in preserving its share of the industry and shares the fate of the rest of the developed world, despite the ever-low value of the yen, according to the ITB World Travel Trends report So, external factors are clearly not perfectly capable of explaining what is taking place.
Thus, evaluating the internal factors is essential in order to develop a stronger explanation here. Qualitative differences that favor the Turkish tourism industry have led travelers to rush to the country. The high quality of Turkish resorts was confirmed by a poll recently conducted by TUI Travel PLC. According to that survey, 17 hotels from Turkey were listed among world’s 100 best hotels by more than 30 million people who traveled with TUI last year. This is not a situation unique to 2008 because 13 Turkish hotels were on the same list the previous year, too. Keeping the high quality of Turkish hotels in mind, there is, however, one other factor on which customer satisfaction from a vacation depends: the services provided by tourism and travel agents. TUI Türkiye is ushering in brilliant days for the Turkish tourism industry through a multitude of high-quality services tailored to customers’ specific needs and requirements.
TUI Türkiye’s place in the industry
Speaking to Today’s Zaman in an interview at her office in İstanbul, TUI Türkiye Director for Business Development Çiğdem Dinç outlined the services they offer and explained the reasons behind the achievements of the company. “Here at TUI Türkiye, we provide our customers a wide array of top-quality services while improving our vision for better services in the future, in order not to step back from the extent we already reached.”
Europe’s biggest travel firm, TUI Travel PLC was created by a merger of German TUI AG and British First Choice Holidays PLC in 2007, and the company’s shares began to be traded on the London Stock Exchange the same year. Currently, the international leisure group operates in over 180 countries, comprising nearly 150 brands and more than 3,300 travel agencies. It served more than 30 million customers last year. TUI Türkiye, accredited by the Turkish Association of Travel Agents (TÜRSAB) under the name Tan Tur and by several international travel associations, including the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the United Federation of Travel Agents’ Associations (UFTAA), is the Turkish branch of the group.
Considered among the most successful Turkish travel agencies, Tan Tur now has over 30 years of experience operating in the tourism industry. The company is owned by TUI and has also been known as TUI Türkiye since 2000.
“We host customers coming from every corner of the world every year, mainly from Germany, followed by other European countries. Last year, for example, we brought more than 1 million tourists to Turkey, which is our primary destination before Greece and Egypt,” said Dinç, discussing how the company fared in 2008.
Tan Tur-TUI Türkiye now provides a multitude of services in addition to travel to Turkey. Business and leisure-oriented travel solutions, event management for all kinds of meetings, including incentives, conferences and sports activities, travel insurance, plane tickets, rental car services and cruises are among the most popular on the long list of services offered by the company.
Event management deserves particular attention since it is handled quite differently by the company’s specialized team. They not only take care of all the details regarding the event’s logistical needs so that the planned program will not suffer from any kind of obstacle and will benefit from the available resources, the event management team also helps determine the concept of that particular meeting and arranges all the details, down to the wall color of the venue, which normally fall low on the list of priorities, if not completely ignored by organizers.
“We believe that every meeting, be it an academic congress or a business convention, has a color. We first help clarify that color and move on accordingly to guarantee the desired outcome,” said Dinç. She added that they place great value on ensuring that such meetings continue to be held in times of crisis, since during such periods businesses normally seek to minimize their costs and cancel their meeting plans, which she believes further exacerbates the problems of the already stalled market. ”We therefore pay attention to the cost side and are trying to organize those meetings with the minimal expenses possible,” she underlined. It is possible to organize tailored meetings in many countries of Europe, Africa, Central America and the Middle East while taking advantage of the experience and specific vision of TUI Türkiye.
The company also serves those residing in Turkey who would like to spend their holidays abroad through its offices in İstanbul and in the southern, southwestern and western regions of Turkey, including locations in Antalya, Belek, Kemer, Side, Alanya, Kuşadası, Bodrum, Marmaris and Fethiye, as well as through the Internet.
With its slogan ”Memories to keep,” TUI Türkiye-Tan Tur seems capable of overcoming the difficulties posed by the ongoing global financial crisis and continues to push the Turkish tourism industry forward.
Source: Today’s Zaman
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