With summer on the horizon, many are wondering whether holidaying in Turkey is a good idea this year.
For Irish sunseekers Turkey has for decades been a top summer destination. Last year 100,000 Irish visitors descended on Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean beaches, according to the Irish Travel Agents Association.
Turkey has been a huge draw because it is reasonably priced and because there is far more to the country than white sandy beaches, Irish bars and a guaranteed tan.
But Turkey has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons of late: two Irish-Algerian citizens were injured in a suicide attack that killed four people in central Istanbul on March 19th.
This week the US embassy in Ankara warned of “credible threats” to tourist areas around the country.
Ankara, the capital, was struck by bomb attacks in February and last month that targeted both military and civilian sites, killing 65 people. On January 12th, 12 Germans and a Peruvian died in a suicide bombing in Sultanahmet Square, a plaza popular with tourists that sits between Istanbul’s historic Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia.
As a result, and because of a diplomatic spat with Russia that has seen many Russian tour operators banned from flying here, bookings for Turkish resort hotels are way down this year. Hotel owners and holiday agencies have since slashed prices.
Budget Travel, for example, offers a week in Kusadasi on Turkey’s Aegean coast in July starting at €345 per person – a similar package in Benidorm that week starts at €497. Thomas Cook has gone as far as advertising Turkey holidays during Premier League football matches on Sky Sports.
Despite the recent bombings the Department of Foreign Affairs travel advice website says merely to “exercise a high degree of caution” if travelling to Turkey. It is deemed as safe as holiday destinations such as the Maldives, Costa Rica and Morocco.
Fewer than 1,000 Irish citizens live in Turkey full time, according to the department. “At present there are 150 Irish citizens registered in Turkey, most of whom are based in Istanbul. We encourage all Irish people travelling abroad to register their details with the department, no matter how brief the intended stay at their destination,” it says.
The department wouldn’t say if there had been a recent increase in queries about the security situation in Turkey.
Happy to stay
Despite the surge in violence in Turkey’s major cities, and perhaps because the Syrian border is a 1,200km drive from Kusadasi and other resort towns – farther than from Dublin to Paris – many Irish residents are content to stay in the southwest.
Cora Brosnan from Millstreet, in Co Cork, moved to Turkey permanently in 2004; she runs an estate agency in Kusadasi, on the Aegean coast. Brosnan was in Istanbul to celebrate St Patrick’s Day last month when a suicide bomber detonated his vest, killing four people. “I was 350m from the explosion. We were shopping at the time of the explosion, and the staff were excellent. They secured the shop, calmly ushered customers to the back and made tea for everyone,” she says.
Despite her brush with disaster, Brosnan believes that Turkey is no more dangerous than European countries or the world in general. “Every holiday and tourist destination is under threat,” she says. “However, the Turkish response is excellent, with increased policing and security measures. I feel safer and more secure here than I did for years living in Dublin.”
As far back as the 1980s, security concerns have been an issue for tourists and Turks alike in various regions of the country, most habitually in the form of the state’s conflict with Kurdish separatists in the southeast. In 2005 a 17-year-old Waterford teenager was one of five people killed in a bus bombing in Kusadasi. Three Turkish citizens and a Briton also died.
And although there have been no attacks on resort areas for several years, some are seeing a fall in business. Aer Lingus wouldn’t give details about the number of Irish passengers using its Dublin-Izmir route, an April-October service mostly used by holidaymakers heading to resorts, but this year it is reducing its service from three times a week to twice. “The route continues to prove popular with our customers,” the airline says.
The tour operator Sunway Holidays sends about 20,000 Irish visitors to Turkey every year. “Turkey has been very popular with Sunway customers and has ranked in our top three most popular destinations over the past five years,” it says, adding that bookings this year are down on 2015 “in light of what has happened around the world.”
“Many of our Turkey clients are repeat customers who have visited these resorts many times and know them extremely well. We have Sunway representatives in all our holiday resorts, so this offers peace of mind to our customers.”
No qualms
For Maria Joyce from Dublin, whose Annalivia restaurant, outside Bodrum, celebrates 15 years of business this year, the violence in Istanbul and Ankara hasn’t changed her assessment. “As a person living here, as a mother with children here, I have no intention of leaving Bodrum,” she says. “There is no reason for me to believe I have to pack up tomorrow.”
Other Irish residents say they have no qualms recommending Turkish resorts and holiday towns to friends and family this summer. “I always encouraged foreigners to holiday in Ireland when I travelled abroad,” says Cora Brosnan. “I have no hesitation in recommending Turkey either as a sun destination or as a cultural holiday.”
Still, the ongoing war in Syria, coupled with recent attacks on tourist targets in Egypt and Tunisia, means that, regardless, Turkey faces a long road ahead to win back its much-prized foreign guests.
