SA can learn much from Turkey’s tourism industry

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Turkey’s tourism industry has grown by 500 percent in the past 20 years, which is not surprising when an online visa application takes just five minutes, writes Mike Wills. Turkey's tourism industry is enormous - valued at $30 billion a year and ranked sixth in the world with three times the number of international visitors that South Africa annually attracts. But that industry is now reeling. Last week’s lethal attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, which I missed by a mere 12 hours, is only the latest high profile calamity for this complex and compelling nation. Last year, visitor numbers were down 3 percent after a sequence of disjointed terror incidents and this year will be much worse (May was down a startling 35 percent). Russia, their second biggest source of holiday makers, banned charter flights for seven months after the Turks shot down a Russian jet fighter during President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in neighbouring Syria.

The real consequences of this geopolitical turbulence could be felt across Istanbul. This was high season, yet scores of cruise boats which normally ply the Bosphorus were docked and empty, our Airbnb host had very few bookings, the Istanbul cycle tour was running for our pleasure alone, the legendary Grand Bazaar was eerily quiet, row upon row of expensive restaurant tables remained vacant and the guide book’s warnings about getting to the Topkapi Palace early to avoid the queues were redundant.

But, for all its current woes, the Turkish tourism industry offers some salutary lessons for us. The government has aggressively grown the industry by 500 percent in 20 years with massive investment at many levels. And they have consciously made their visa regulations the most tourist-friendly in the world. South Africans can obtain a free visa online in under two minutes. Malusi Gigaba, please note.

The Turks are spending big on upkeep with a major programme to restore their monuments. While we may not have magnificent mosques and Byzantine churches to look after, we do have a rundown Robben Island, a tatty Castle, a littered coastline, endangered wildlife and under-funded national parks on our urgent to-do list. They will not take care of themselves.

The Turks also understand the key role of transport. They have made Turkish Airlines one of the world’s biggest and best. Much of that stems from a geographical advantage which allows them to operate from Istanbul as a rival global hub to the Gulf states. Obviously we cannot emulate that (or what Ethiopian Airlines are trying to do in the same space), but we should not be glib about the possible consequences for tourism of the current shambles at SAA.

And Istanbul’s urban transport was spectacularly easy to use and gloriously integrated. A single card delivered access for a R12 fixed price per journey of any distance on trams, ferries, metro trains, historic funiculars and buses - all of which were slick, clean and safe.

In one area, though, the Turks still have some work to do. The metered taxi driver who hurtled us in alarming fashion to the airport would not have been out of place on an F1 track or Voortrekker Road.

Cape Argus