Turkey has revealed a "drastic" new strategy for UK holidaymakers who are considering cancelling their trips and opting for Greece instead. The plan is designed to enhance the skills of Turkey's tourism workers in the face of stiff competition from popular holiday destination and EU hotspot, Greece.
As reported by Birmingham Live, Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said: "I believe we will soon become a nation renowned for exporting touristic general managers to the world. Through the protocol we are inaugurating today, we will have the opportunity to nurture the future architects of tourism, officials and visionaries alongside you."
The newly approved agreement aims to encourage the creation of more tourism and gastronomy departments at universities while introducing a multilingual education model. Students studying tourism-related subjects will be predominantly taught in English, but will also need to become proficient in a second language, choosing from Russian, Chinese and Arabic.
Ersoy highlighted the importance of the protocol, stressing that human capital is the most crucial aspect of tourism and that the industry's primary need is a workforce of exceptional quality. Recent reports in Turkish media have emphasised the growing interest among students in gastronomy education, reflecting the sector's increasing prominence.
The pilot programme is set to kick off in universities situated in Turkey's top holiday hotspots, such as İzmir, Antalya, Mardin, and Muğla, with plans to roll it out across the country. Hamit Kuk, a senior advisor for the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies, said: "The average room occupancy rate in hotels in Bodrum, Marmaris, Fethiye and Antalya is currently around 80 percent.
"There are no empty hotels or resorts as [some reports have suggested but] room occupancy rates were 100 percent in previous years." He also went on and added: "[I expect] two and three-star hotels to close in October, four-star hotels to close in mid-October and five-star hotels to remain open until the end of October."
