Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Adil Karaismailoğlu attended the TÜROB Traditional Luncheon as “Guest Speaker”...

The May “Traditional Luncheon” of TÜROB – the Association of Turkish Hoteliers was held at the Fairmont Quasar Istanbul hotel.

Attending the luncheon were: Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Turkey Adil Karaismailoğlu, Istanbul Deputy Governor Özlem Bozkurt Gevrek, Istanbul Provincial Director of Culture and Tourism Dr. Coşkun Yılmaz, former TÜROB President Timur Bayındır, TÜROB Founding Member Demir Sözmen, the presidents and executives of NGOs active in the sector, members of the press and numerous TÜROB members.

In her speech at the luncheon, TÜROB President Müberra Eresin said: “As the Association of Turkish Hoteliers, we are delighted to resume our TÜROB Traditional Luncheon organization – which we have continued from our founding to the present day – after an interval of approximately 27 months since 27 February 2020, when we last held it at Gastronometro together with the award ceremony of our ‘Sector on a Talent Hunt’ project, just before the onset of the pandemic. About three years ago, on the first day I was elected TÜROB President, I shared that our most important goal would be to contribute to education, and afterwards, together with our board of directors, we set the motto of TÜROB’s 50th anniversary as education. Foreseeing that the greatest problem to be encountered in the coming years in the field of tourism – which has been contracting worldwide for two years due to the pandemic – would be qualified human resources, we accelerated our efforts during this period in cooperation with our Ministries and universities to meet this need. Particularly during the pandemic period, through training programs we organized in cooperation with many corporate partners, foremost our corporate sponsor ECOLAB, we provided training to nearly 50 thousand sector employees on various subjects, both in person and online, and we continue to do so. Together with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of National Education, we launched the implementation of the ‘Vocational Training Centers’ project, with Istanbul as the pilot province, in order to train qualified human resources for the tourism sector. We also continue to work closely with our Ministry of National Education to resolve any disruptions that arise within the scope of the project. Students at these centers, where the educational period is set at 4 years for graduates of at least middle school, will receive vocational and theoretical lessons – mainly focused on foreign languages – one day a week at school and on-the-job training at hotels five days a week, and over the years, by reaching the apprentice, journeyman and master levels, will earn a high school diploma in addition to these certificates. From here, I once again offer my gratitude to all our members and our esteemed Ministers who support this project. Speaking of education, I would like to share with you a piece of good news that holds great importance for me personally and of which I am proud. Following the agreement reached with our Ministry of National Education, we have launched our institutional cooperation with the Vocational High Schools providing hospitality and tourism education in our country – by also adding TÜROB’s name to the school. As the first link in this project, we signed a protocol with Istanbul Provincial Director of National Education Mr. Levent Yazıcı to change the name of the Şişli Kervansaray Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School to ‘TÜROB 50th Anniversary Şişli Tourism Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School.’ We will begin the work within the scope of the protocol shortly and, starting with this school, will continue to take rapid steps to provide trained human resources in the areas our sector needs. Following this first implementation, increasing the number of schools with which we cooperate will be our main goal. As of today, our expectation in the tourism sector is that the upward trend in demand will continue in the second half of the year and that the sector’s figures will trend upward. As TÜROB and sector organizations, we believe that, through steps to be taken in public-private sector cooperation and following the results-oriented, successful promotion and marketing efforts carried out by our Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Turkey Tourism Development and Promotion Agency (TGA), the tourism sector will reach its targets and continue to provide strong support to the country’s economy, employment and development. While I am on the subject, I would like to make a necessary assessment in response to the statements made recently by certain individuals or institutions to the public regarding hotel occupancy rates – many of which we have observed to be made without being based on any data. That is to say: the statements claiming that the same occupancy rate was achieved throughout the entire January-April period, based on the assumption that hotels – particularly in Istanbul – were 90% full on certain days of the month, are not consistent with the realities of the sector. In Istanbul in particular, with the increase in tourist demand from the Middle East, the average length of stay at hotels has risen from 2.4 days recorded in 2019 to 2.7 days, and is projected to reach 2.9 days by the end of the year. On the other hand, in Istanbul – a city-break (weekend short city getaway) destination – it is already very difficult for hotels to achieve the same occupancy rates on all days of the week. As TÜROB, the monthly ‘Country’ and ‘Destination’ Performance Reports prepared by STR – one of the world’s leading data and analytics companies, with which we have cooperated for many years to determine hotels’ average occupancy and nightly rates – are regularly published on our website. In line with these reports, we can see that, regarding hotels’ monthly average occupancy and nightly rates, despite the positive developments we have made today both across Turkey and in Istanbul compared to the same periods of 2019 – which we take as the pre-pandemic baseline – we have not yet reached the levels of 2019 in occupancy rates. There are current issues in our sector awaiting resolution, as well as numerous legislative changes that have taken place recently. We continue our contacts with the relevant Ministries, institutions and organizations without slowing down in order to find solutions to these issues and to present our recommendations. I would like to briefly inform you about some of the topics we are following.

- The application of a common tariff to the entire sector on the matter of Copyrights,

- The resolution of ongoing uncertainties regarding the sale of services / price quotations in foreign currency within the country,

- The increase of the 7,000 TL cash payment upper limit for guests staying at hotels, primarily those coming from Iran and the Middle East,

- The resolution of uncertainties regarding the application of the VAT reduction to all food & beverage services within accommodation establishments,

- Granting hotels the authority to exchange foreign currency (buying-selling) in order to meet the essential needs of guests staying at accommodation establishments,

- Removing the “Safe Tourism Certificate” from being mandatory and ensuring its continuation by establishments that wish to do so on a voluntary basis, and the work to determine, in its place, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) criteria for sustainable tourism, the work on which has been initiated by the Turkey Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA)

are among the examples I can give of the matters we are working to bring to a conclusion. As you know, it is not possible for us to speak of tourism without transportation. The volume of organized tourism – launched by Thomas Cook in 1841 with the invention of the steamship and the locomotive – today approaching 2 billion tourists worldwide could not even have been imagined. The countless works brought to life one after another in our country in recent years, such as airports, cruise ports, metros, high-speed trains, highways, bridges, towers and tunnels, have formed the foundation of the great leap in tourism. Wherever there is transportation, tourism will exist with new investment and employment. That is to say: countless works such as the Ordu-Giresun and Rize-Artvin airports, the Northern Marmara / Ankara-Niğde highways, the Osmangazi Bridge, the Eurasia Tunnel, Marmaray, the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge, the Black Sea coastal road, the Touristic Eastern Express, the Ankara-Konya-Eskişehir-Istanbul high-speed trains, Istanbul Airport and Galataport have, thanks to the comfort and easy accessibility they offer, brought their cities together with their surroundings and regions, and with numerous tourists and naturally with tourism. I once again offer our gratitude in your presence to our Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Mr. Adil Karaismailoğlu for his work in realizing these and countless other unique works that I cannot enumerate, and for his support of our sector.”

Coming to the podium to deliver his speech, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Turkey Adil Karaismailoğlu first stated that he was extremely pleased to attend the meeting and thanked TÜROB President Müberra Eresin and the Board of Directors for the invitation. In his speech, Minister Adil Karaismailoğlu said: “Twenty years ago, our country had an inadequate road infrastructure. For this reason, we had to quickly bring our road infrastructure to a significant level. We operate a divided road network that has reached 28,650 kilometers over 20 years and a highway network of over 68 thousand kilometers. We are doing important work. With our 28,650-kilometer road network, we also serve 85 percent of current traffic. We have closed a significant infrastructure gap. A 28,650-kilometer divided road network sounds easy, but thanks to this road network we achieve savings of close to 17 billion dollars per year. Moreover, most importantly, we save on fuel and time, but thanks to these high-quality, high-safety roads, we have achieved reductions of up to a full 80 percent in traffic accidents. In return, we save up to 12 thousand lives per year. Now, 20 years ago the number of air passengers across Turkey was 30 million annually. Today it is 210 million. This is not enough either; we will increase it much further. We said, ‘There will be no place in the world we cannot reach,’ and we realized it. Very important airline investments were made. We brought to the world airports such as Tokat Airport and Rize-Artvin Airport, one of the few examples of its kind in the world. Rize-Artvin Airport, with its 3 thousand-meter runway, is among the few such airports in the world. In maritime transport too, our marina projects in particular are ongoing. The capacity expansion project at Antalya Airport has begun. All investments will be completed by 2025. Istanbul Airport is one of the works to be taken as an example in the world. It is a project that will generate revenue for the state for years without a single penny coming from the state. It went down in world history in this way. Last year, despite the pandemic, it continued to be number one in Europe. We have important work for the Yenikapı Cruise Port. We have reached the final stage in the EIA and planning processes. God willing, we will bring the Yenikapı Cruise Port into service in the coming months.”

Following the speeches, TÜROB President Müberra Eresin presented plaques of appreciation to Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Adil Karaismailoğlu and to Fairmont Quasar Istanbul General Manager Nicolas Kipper.