Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Turkey’s Tourism Recovery Process during Covid-19: Policy, Planning, Management, James Kennell, Editör, Routledge, London/New York , London, ss.97-111, 2022
This book chapter attempted to understand the experience of the COVID process
in the context of the Turkish experience, in which spatial-temporal perspectives
were presented. The country’s winter and summer destinations in two different
locations were evaluated from the perspectives of policy, planning and management
subjects. It has been principally seen that the DMO approach seems to be flourishing during the recovery period of the tourism destination. Although Turkey’s
TRTS2023 strategy mainly supports the DMOs in a ‘holistic’ way, the localfinancially-independent DMO is more flexible in producing marketing strategies
for the crisis’s times and the politically unstable regions (Şeremet et al., 2022). This
might be an example of the emerging role of DMO in creating resilient economies.
While ‘powerful’ summer destinations suffer from the COVID-19 lock-down
period, ‘niche’ tourism destinations have gained strength. Therefore, the winter
destination seems to be less affected by this stagnation period.
The revitalisation of the tourism sector in the COVID period accrued to the
small-scale region from the country’s geopolitical discourse in recent years (Cihangir et al., 2022). The country’s new geopolitical discourse was more operationalised
through the country’s flagship company and infrastructural investments in transportation. The widespread domestic airports spreading through the country’s emerging destinations are bringing destinations closer to each other. In the Erciyes case, a
new marketing strategy offering the amalgamation of the cultural with experiencebased tourism created a combined marketing strategy. This comparison-based case
study research evidenced that the Cappadocia destination was rejuvenated by the
integration of experience-based tourism destination of ski tourism. As the variation is an important phenomenon for the rejuvenation process, the city’s shopping centre and winter tourism resort have combined with Cappadocia’s balloon
tourism and cultural tourism assets. In this manner, the ski resort largely benefited
from the partner destination’s aligned tourism policy with the government’s latest
geopolitical initiative towards the east, including Russia, Ukraine and other eastern
countries.
110 Kübra Cihangir-Çamur, Emine Cihangir and Mehmet Şeremet
In the Dalyan case, the lack of networking and the challenge of ‘new’ geopolitical alignment have been more affected the destination, while villa tourism has
created an alternative tourism approach to the town. Although the destination has
sustained its tourism potential in the COVID period with this approach, this does
not offer more job opportunities within the tourism sector, as it includes a closed
circle. Nevertheless, the destination’s boutique hotels and the country’s ‘new’ tourism policy, as well as the support for the sector’s workers, have to some extent
helped to sustain the hopes of the tourism sector for the coming years. Alongside
challenges in this period, some advantages emerged for the ‘niche’ market in shifting the tourist’s perception towards the small hotels and boutique accommodation
places. Given that there have been some incentives and regulations, small-scale
accommodation businesses were not able to benefit from the government’s financial support. The employees in the sector were only able to receive short-work
payments for a limited period. Taken as a whole, while the COVID-19 period
caused some challenges, the sector has learned to create new pathways for being
resilient and creating alternative policies, even without the support of tourism
authorities. This might ‘spin-off’ into the development of ‘niche’ accommodation
places such as glamping, caravan, tiny-house, and camping tourism types in the
summer tourism regions.
Overall, Turkey’s experience in the COVID process allows us to recognise the
structure and challenges of the tourism industry related to its interrelated and complex structure. It is a multi-sectoral eco-system, and this characteristic of tourism
demand and supply needs a more holistic perception and approach. These findings
may help in the innovation of new generation tourism policies and in shaping the
future by understanding what the pandemic taught us in different cultural contexts.
This may direct politicians and decision-makers to a novel strategy, plan and management processes to repair the damage that the COVID-19 crisis has done to the
tourism industry.