The Alanya Tourism Promotion Foundation (ALTAV) continued its 2017 preparations by participating in the TT Warsaw Fair in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. The TT Warsaw Fair, which is opening its doors to visitors for the 25th time this year and will last for 3 days, is expected to be attended by over 30 thousand tourism professionals and visitors. Vice President Mehmet Dahaoğlu is representing Alanya on behalf of ALTAV in Poland. The Alanya stand is located within the 250-square-meter stand opened by the Ministry of Tourism. On the first day of TT Warsaw, many people visited the Alanya stand and received information. Poland's Deputy Minister of Tourism Dawid Lasek also visited the stand.
'WE WILL HOST THE JOURNALISTS'
ALTAV Vice President Mehmet Dahaoğlu, making evaluations regarding the first day of the fair, stated that interest in the fair is high, but guests visiting the Turkey stand still have concerns regarding Turkey. Dahaoğlu said, "For the past 5 years, we have been coming here as Alanya very seriously and in full force. When we arrive, we try to hold meetings with agencies, journalists, and people who organize forums—in short, with people who reach thousands and millions. We invite them to Alanya. Today, we met with 2 journalists. Members of the press who had visited Alanya before came to us again, and we hosted them at our stand. In the coming process, we will host them in Alanya again."
'PROMOTIONAL ARGUMENTS WILL INCREASE'
Dahaoğlu said the following in the continuation of his speech: "We held meetings with Ministry officials here. We exchanged ideas for different promotion methods. We will try different methods that do not currently exist. We also conveyed the greetings of our President Adem Murat Yücel. We expressed that we have a great need for tourists both as Turkey and in Alanya, and that every visiting tourist will provide a contribution to us.
VISIT FROM THE DEPUTY MINISTER
It pleases us that people visiting the stand at the fair ask questions about Alanya. People who have decided to vacation in Alanya are visiting. This is a gratifying thing. We have a Polish-speaking staff member living in Alanya. They provide information in Polish to those who visit. Deputy Minister of Tourism of Poland Dawid Lasek also visited our stand. We presented him with gifts unique to Alanya and invited him to Alanya. He stated that he had visited Alanya before and would come again. As for the large tour operators, we had met with them beforehand. They said that the first day would be busy and that they would come on the second day.
'500 THOUSAND LOST IN POLAND'
There are question marks. There are security concerns, but our duty begins when we can remove as much of this as possible from people's minds. There is a serious loss, yes, and we experienced the largest part of this in Poland. Nearly 500 thousand passengers visited Turkey in 2015. The target for 2016 was 800 thousand passengers, but some negative developments occurred. We can say that 'a loss of approximately 500 thousand visitors occurred' compared to the target figure. If there were no crisis, we could have reached these figures very easily. Of course, no one would want these problems, but we are tourism professionals; we are hopeful. We will continue to work so that this place gains the desired momentum. There are no concerns among the people who have come to Alanya, but this number needs to be increased. Actually, there are more political concerns than terrorism. We hope these will be overcome. Unfortunately, upcoming fairs are becoming more lackluster with each passing year. At this fair, I would have liked to see my hotelier friends from Alanya as well. But unfortunately, let alone Alanya, there are only 5 hotels from all of Turkey. This shows that it is a serious problem. We cannot get anywhere with a tourism marketing strategy like this."