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Artisans not pleased with tourist boom
1.       Trudy
7887 posts
 22 Aug 2008 Fri 06:11 pm



The number of foreign tourists to Turkey this July increased by 16.55 percent, creating a boom in the tourism sector. But this situation has not benefited artisans in holiday resorts in the country. Marmaris is one of the resorts where shop owners complain about tourists who don´t want to spend money and barter with shop owners to pay less for even very cheap items.


 


MUĞLA - Doğan News Agency


 


While Turkey is about to break a record in the number of tourists this year, artisans in popular holiday towns are not pleased with this situation. Small shop owners in the Aegean town of Muğla´s Marmaris district, where streets of the shopping malls seem like desolate, complain about stagnancy in sales. According to a statement on foreign tourists made by the Ministry of Culture, the number of foreigners arrived in Turkey in this July increased by 16.55 percent to 3,624,000. Also, the number of tourists who visited Turkey from January to July has reached 12,808,369. This increase happened in Muğla, where Turkey´s world famous holiday resorts like Bodrum, Marmaris, Milas, Fethiye, Dalaman and Ortaca exist. The number of tourists who arrived in Muğla in the first six months of the year increased by 16 percent and reached 947,040 compared to last year. Speaking to the Doğan News Agency, artisans in Marmaris said they could not take advantage of that pleasing situation because their sales were going bad. Their common subjects of complaint were “penny-pinching” tourists, the “all-inclusive system,” salesmen, who disturb people to sell their products, and foreign guides, who recommend tourists to bargain. They said tourists bargained even for food and the Internet prices in cafes.


 


‘They don´t want to pay for taxi´


Some taxi and dolmuş (shared taxi) drivers said some tourists did not want to pay money because they thought transportation was also included in “all-inclusive” prices. They said this situation sometimes caused harsh discussions between drivers and tourists. “Unless necessary measures are taken and artisans do their best, Turkish tourism won´t have a bright future regardless of the increase in tourist numbers,” said Muğla Craftsmen and Artisans Chamber Chairman Şükrü Ayyıldız. He called for all officials and chamber members to find a solution. Noting that it should be imposed restrictions on all-inclusive system, hypermarkets and stores in shopping malls should be urgently closed, foreign tourists guides, who harm Turkey´s image, should be inspected, Ayyıldız continued, “Artisans often complain about their bad situation. What we observe is that there are many tourists but they don´t spend money. It is known that the all-inclusive system has a negative effect on sales. But it is not easy to give up this system under current conditions. Moreover, stores selling all kinds of products open in hotels. They prevent sales in small shops and they must be closed. Hypermarkets are also the nightmare of artisans. They harm the country´s economy as well as the small shop owners.” He noted that tourists walked in the middle of the street but not on pavements because of people who force them to buy something, and added,  “Tourists should not be disturbed by these people. We also have foreign guide problem. Some tourism agencies send guides, who don´t even have any tourism education and don´t know anything about Turkey, to the country in order to pay less money. These guides recommend tourists to bargain in shopping and not to trust anyone. They harm the image of our artisans and our country.”


 


‘A tourism policy is needed´


Marmaris Mayor Ali Acar said artisans had the same problems in other holiday towns in Turkey, too. He said 4,500 holiday towns in the world created a serious competition in the sector, but Turkey was in difficulty to survive because of the lack of a tourism policy. “Many of our holiday towns have turned into a concrete jungle, and service quality lowered. Meanwhile, the number of holiday alternatives has increased all around the world. And the lack of a tourism policy have made our artisans´ situation worse.”


The game of foreign tour operators


Temel Irmak, the owner and the editor-in-chief of a daily paper titled “Gündem” that has been published in Marmaris for six years, claimed that it was foreign tour operators that caused negative events making artisans crazy. He said these operators launched Turkey´s holiday resorts as “cheap holiday alternative” abroad and added, “I have been working as a journalist in Marmaris for 13 years. Despite the number of tourists increase more and more every other season, artisans have gone bad. I think the most important reason for this situation is foreign tour operators, which sell Turkish hotels at giveaway price.”


 


Source: www.turkishdailynews.com.tr


 

2.       peacetrain
1905 posts
 22 Aug 2008 Fri 07:27 pm

 

Quoting Trudy

" . . . shop owners complain about tourists who don´t want to spend money and barter with shop owners to pay less for even very cheap items."

 

MUĞLA - Doğan News Agency 

 

 I think they have a point.

 

There is a difference between entering into the spirit of a bartering game in the Kapali Carsi in Istanbul (where prices are often grossly marked up) and trying to squeeze the last drop of profit out of a craftsman who is trying to make a living. 

 

I´m a little timid when it comes to the bartering game and prefer to shop around until I see something that I feel is the right price for me.  If the seller is also making a profit because I haven´t beaten his price down to a pulp, then we´re both gain and we´re both happy. 

 

My first ever trip to Istanbul was with a friend who insisted on bartering for everything.  She caught the bug in the grand bazaar (I still think the sellers saw her coming, but didn´t like to burst her bubble) and thereafter tried it on with every purchase she made, wherever she was buying.  She even refused to let me buy some items because I wouldn´t try to get them cheaper! I travel to Turkey alone now .

 

I went to stay with a Turkish friend recently and we travelled to Eskişehir,  to stay with her mother (who may be the topic of another story one day . . . lovely lady) for a few days.  We had a day walking around the city and found a quadrangle of Artisans´ workshops.  Many were carving items, out of the meerschaum stone Eskişehir is famous for, and selling them.

 

My friend and I walked into one of these workshops and watched the man at his craft and he even gave me a piece of stone and a knife so that I could try for myself.  We looked around his workplace, at the fruits of his labour and he explained the processes in making some of them.  For instance, most of the prayer beads were treated with a special type of wax (there was a large bucket of this in the workshop), necessary if the stone is to keep it´s colour after being constantly handled during prayer.  One string of beads was particularly beautiful as each bead had been intricately carved.  I think I bought it for 10YTL, peanuts to a U.K. tourist when one thinks of the skill and hours poured into it. 

 

As I was busy working with my stone we had friendly discussion (my friend did most of the talking) and the craftsman even provided us with water because he could see how difficult the heat was for me.  Now I could be cynical and say this was a ploy to keep us in the shop and soften us in the hope that we would buy.  The truth is we had already chosen some items and this man was a very sincere person, easy to detect from the manner of the conversation.  I chose some other items too, in fact it was difficult to choose because everything was so beautiful.  The craftsman wrapped each item individually and carefully and gave me an additional item as a gift.  We all three had a happy experience and I think we all gained something other than trinkets and cash.

 

As we strolled around the quadrangle, a calligrapher´s workshop caught my eye and my friend and I went in.  Again, there was a mutual sincerity and the conversation was heartwarming.  As we talked, the calligrapher worked on a beautiful piece of card, on which he wrote my name and the result was lovely - something for me to keep and remember a sublime half hour of my life in years to come.  In another place, at another time, I may have stopped this man from doing this as I would have thought he may expect payment, but it was clear from the outset - he was asking for nothing in return.  This simple act pleased him and that was enough.  He also produced a similar card for my friend, with an Arabic inscription on it.  We didn´t buy anything from the calligrapher´s shop. There was one particular item I would have loved but it was quite a few lire too far for me . . .  one day soon, I´ll return.

 

So, I have every sympathy for those artisans in the news article.  Not every seller is trying to make a killing at a tourist´s expense.

 

3.       doudi94
845 posts
 22 Aug 2008 Fri 09:19 pm

i knoooooooow!! When i told my dad i wanted to go to vacation to Turkey he said it was an easy thing to do because they make all these packages and offers all year around taht are sooooooo cheap and they include EVERYTHING!! I actually thought at that time taht this was a good thing the country did to increase tourism but now i guess i see it from a different poin of view, i hate people who haggle! You see alot of those people here in Egypt heheh!!! But i thinbk some tourists think its okay to haggle because their ina  foreign country or something and taht they should ahev the right to haggle(wrong of course) but the truthi sis some place s like triple prices soo much! Of course especially hotels but you cant bargain with hotels (No-Duh!!) Especially here because there are so amny toursists alwayssss, smthg that sells for half a pound you can find it in atouristic place for 5 pounds!!!!!! its like OMG!! like in the major malls, i buiy a bottle of water for a pound and a hlaf from the supermarket and i get there for 7 pounds! and you are rigght some people try to make their prices sooo high for tourists! And the street sellers never let them goand the street beggars! I think all touristic countries should do something to stop them (BTW the street beggars dont leave anyone, not just the tourists!!!lol)

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