Coping with Continuous Crises: The Case of Turkish Inbound Tourism

Abstract

The aim of this article is to outline how on several levels the Turkish tourism industry has managed to cope with the different crises it has faced since it entered the world of mass tourism. Turkey is undoubtedly a unique destination with a strong tourism industry that depends heavily on European tourists and extends into Europe. The challenges faced by Turkey are not unique. It could be argued that there are lessons to be drawn from Turkey's experience of constant crises which would be applicable to other Mediterranean tourist destinations. As will be outlined in the following discussion, the structure of the Turkish tourism industry has had to adapt itself to various internal and external political, economic and financial crises. This adaptation has been possible because of the intrinsic flexibility of the industry's structure, and the links it has outside the country. Its relative robustness is also helped by the fact that inbound tourism is affected more by international economic conditions, than by the state of the Turkish economy. Turkey has been experiencing crises since the early 1980s, shortly after becoming a mass tourism destination for Europeans. Throughout the 1980s terrorism was instigated by the separatist Kurdish group, the PKK (Kurdistan Worker's Party), which was attempting to establish an independent Kurdish state in eastern Turkey. As a result of the disruptions created by the PKK, eastern Turkey at that time was not included in the tour brochures of Turkish and foreign tour operators, and was not open to visitors. The main problem with PKK terrorism was that it created internal unrest which was destructive to the Turkish economy and disturbed political relationships throughout the country. Despite this unrest, there were no major terrorist activities which actually targeted the tourism industry or foreign visitors. Throughout the decade other terrorist activities, none of them directly associated with Turkey, had their effect on Turkish tourism figures. The chief of these were the hijacking of two TWA aircrafts and the Achille Lauro cruise ship. In 1986 such incidents escalated as embassies and airports were targeted by terrorists in Vienna, Paris, and Istanbul. The 1990s began with Iraqi threats which led to the invasion of Kuwait, and climaxed the following year with the first Gulf War. Throughout the Eastern Mediterranean international tourist travel decreased because of the war and Turkey faced its first severe crisis with a steep decline in the numbers of visiting foreign tourists. This decline was exacerbated in 1992 when the PKK terrorists warned the