ALTAV and ALTİD Board Member Şükrü Cimrin provided information and shared his impressions regarding the meetings held at the 4-day Matka Messut tourism fair in Finland. Şükrü Cimrin, a Board Member of the Alanya Tourism Promotion Foundation (ALTAV) and the Alanya Tourism Operators Association (ALTİD), who participated in the Matka Helsinki Fair held in Finland between January 18-21, shared information about the activities carried out at the fair. Cimrin, conveying his impressions of the fair in detail, addressed the following topics: "As ALTAV, we participated in the Finland Tourism fair, Matka Messut. Thus, we have been attending the same fair for 23 consecutive years. Last year, the Finland fair, which was not included in the fair calendar of the Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA), was included in the calendar this year, and it has become one of the fairs attended by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. At the Türkiye stand, our country was represented by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, TGA, the Helsinki Culture and Tourism Attaché Office, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, ALTAV, and Turkish Airlines (THY). The stand prepared by TGA was enriched with many activities, attracting great interest from both professional participants and visitors. Visitors were entertained with Kahramanmaraş ice cream, which caused queues in front of the Türkiye stand. Animations made by the ice cream maker were recorded and shared by hundreds of people on their phones. Turkish Airlines and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism held a draw for free airline tickets among those who visited our stand. During the fair, TGA Product Marketing Manager Ceylan Şensoy gave a comprehensive presentation to tourism professionals on the steps taken in Türkiye regarding 'Sustainability' and the vision of Turkish tourism." ALANYA TRIPS ARE RECEIVING ATTENTION "We brought various promotional materials about the Alanya region to the fair and provided these materials to visitors interested in our region. The information, feedback, and interest in Alanya that we received from those who visited our stand were very valuable to us. We informed visitors about the direct flights from Helsinki to Alanya. The fact that these flights continue throughout the summer and winter is of great interest to everyone. We thanked Arzu Emel Polat, our Helsinki Tourism and Promotion Attaché, whom we met and with whom we have previously carried out successful promotional activities, for the press and influencer trips she organized for the Alanya and Mediterranean regions last year. We exchanged ideas with her about conducting similar activities in the 2024 season. IMPROVEMENTS MADE FOR TOUR OPERATORS WERE EXPLAINED "The distance from the airport to hotels is extremely important for tour operators. We also informed them that the tender for the Alanya-Antalya Highway has been awarded and that construction will begin, and this was met with positive reactions from visitors and tour operators. We also informed tour operators about the improvements and works to be carried out on the existing D-400 highway between Alanya and Antalya until the highway is built, in order to speed up the road. As a result of our meetings with Mixx Travel, Aurinko Matkat, Tjareborg, and Longi Tours, which is new to the market, we learned that they will maintain the capacity they achieved in the 2023 season in their 2024 plans for Türkiye. They stated that if demand exceeds the 2023 level, they can increase capacity with additional plans. An important topic we shared with tour operators was the extension of the season. We told the tour operators we met in Finland that other European tour operators, especially British tour operators, have extended the season until the end of November, and we asked them to consider this important issue. SUN EXPRESS WILL FLY DIRECTLY TO ANTALYA "The fact that Sun Express will start direct flights from Helsinki to Antalya starting in June is also important news for our Antalya region. Our hope is that these flights will continue not only during the summer months but also throughout the winter. We agreed to invite Jari Tanskanen, a news reporter for the Finnish Radio and Television Corporation (YLE), to Alanya in the spring as a result of our meeting with him. Jari Tanskanen has provided us with positive news through the countless news stories he has produced about Türkiye so far, and he continues to support us in this regard." "THE FINNISH MARKET IS GROWING" "We received a total of 120,000 passengers from Finland in the 2023 season. Of these passengers, 56,000 arrived on package tours. In the 2022 season, a total of 40,000 people came to Türkiye on package tours. While this represents a 40% increase, we are still far from the 70,000 figure achieved in 2019. If we go back to 2014, 133,000 package tours were sold to Türkiye. As a result, when we look at it, the Finnish market has declined from the figures it achieved in 2014 and is now on an upward trend again. We must work tirelessly to return to those previous figures and increase them. In the ranking of countries most visited by Finnish tourists, Greece, Spain, Türkiye, and Cyprus are ranked first. This ranking was the same last year. In the 2023 summer season, Greece hosted 229,000, Spain 180,000, Türkiye 56,000, and Cyprus 26,000 package tour guests. This shows that we must increase the share we receive from the pie with the right strategies. Finns, who are starting to increase their travel numbers throughout the year, are making intensive efforts by TGA and the Helsinki Tourism Attaché Office to come to Türkiye more often and more frequently in order to increase their visits. In this regard, it is very important to be able to correctly analyze the sensitivities and reasons for the decline of this market. The increase in holiday sales after Türkiye's approval of Finland's membership in NATO is another reality. Scandinavian countries are one of the four regions that TGA has prioritized and is working on specifically for the 2024 year among the 200 countries it promotes. Therefore, TGA Product Marketing Manager Ceylan Şensoy and Country Marketing Manager Zeynep Üçok Çelikağ held dozens of professional meetings for four days. We believe that these meetings with tour operators, agencies, and the press will be extremely beneficial for the correct analysis of the Finnish market and the development of marketing strategies, and will provide insights. In addition to the three elements of sea, sand, and sun, we believe that Finnish guests will be more interested in the alternative tourism products that attract Finns and that TGA is leading in developing in Turkish destinations in the coming period, and that we will attract more guests under different headings. Furthermore, Cimrin thanked Finland's Ambassador to Türkiye, Deniz Çakar, who did not leave the Türkiye stand throughout the fair, TGA officials Ceylan Şensoy and Zeynep Üçok Çelikağ, Helsinki Tourism and Culture Attaché Arzu Emel Polat, and everyone involved for their contributions.