Elvan Güneş, Board Member of the Alanya Tourist Operators Association (ALTİD) and the Alanya Promotion Foundation (ALTAV), assessed the pulse of the Azerbaijani tourism market. Güneş shared the information and impressions she obtained from her meetings as follows: The AITF Tourism Fair was held in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, between April 2-4. As the Tourism Promotion Counselor's office, participation was provided for the 8th time at the 14th tourism fair held, with an area of 207 square meters. We participated in the fair as the Alanya Promotion Foundation (ALTAV), which was carried out under the coordination of Azerbaijan Promotion Counselor Ahmet Seyit Aslan Bey. We had a very effective and productive fair process. Despite an approximately 35 percent devaluation in this market, a 40 percent increase has been planned. Last year, approximately 630 thousand people came to our country.
“17-18 PLANES WILL ARRIVE PER WEEK”
According to information obtained from Mahir Ahmetov, an official from Summer Tur, which holds 80 percent of the market, 17-18 flights per week will arrive from Baku to Antalya via Azerbaijan Airlines for the year 2015. Additionally, he stated that they could charter aircraft from Turkish Airlines (THY). Stating that he is organizing a workshop at the Fourseason Hotel one day before the fair, Ahmetov expressed that a total of 57 hoteliers from the Aegean and Antalya regions participated, and they expect hoteliers from Alanya to show intensive participation in such organizations. He said that this event, which brought together approximately 500 people, is an opportunity and they want Alanya to benefit from these opportunities as well. They are not yet considering flying to Gazipaşa-Alanya Airport. The reason for this is that the sales density ranking in the Mediterranean Region is Antalya, Kemer, Belek, and Alanya. Furthermore, many agencies make sales from package tours prepared by ezastyle.az and tourinfo.az. Turkey comes at the very top of the list of countries chosen for holidays by the Azerbaijani people. We must turn this interest into an opportunity.
“THE PRESIDENT VISITED”
Azerbaijan President İlham Aliyev, his spouse, and Minister of Tourism Ebulfez Qarayev visited the Türkiye stand. At the request of the Promotion Counselor's Office, I accompanied them as a sector representative. As in other fairs, we once again had close contact with the press. We gave interviews to World Travel Channel and Azerbaijan TV. As a result of our efforts to conduct promotion through the press, which we also carried out at the Lithuania Fair, Journalist-Writer Ausrine Semiene, whom we invited, will be working in Alanya as our guest between April 5-12. As ALTAV, we will host her within a program. Semiene writes for the news portals lrytas.lt, delfi.lt, and 15min.lt, as well as the newspapers Valstieciu, Kauno Diena, and Lietuvos zinios.