Travel News
Turkey Woos More Nigerians To Visit Bodrum - NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
By Wale Olapade
The City of Bodrum wants to take advantage of its special relationship with Nigeria to drive its tourism traffic.
The Mayor of the City of Bodrum, Ahmet Aras, recently hosted a Nigerian lead team invited for exploratory meetings led by Abuja based tour operator, Cecile Mambo Doumbe of CMD Tours.
The team included Ambassador Ikechi Uko, a travel expert and Adebayo Ajayi, the travel sultan of Abay Tours.
According to the Mayor, “Turkey has everything the Nigerian traveller wants. We have amazing shopping of top quality materials. We have wonderful destinations of which Bodrum is the best.
“The historical legends of Turkey are unparalleled for both Christians and Moslems. Anything you want we have and more.
“We want you to come and enjoy our Mediterranean culture within Asia. Bodrum is home to many ancient civilisations like Greece and the Island of Rhodes.
“We have the largest underwater museum in the world. AirBnB started from Bodrum over 50 years ago.
“We had no hotels and we gave our houses for bed and breakfast. But today we have the most luxurious vacations in Europe.
“I will be coming to Nigeria to market Bodrum and I invite Nigerians to the Mediterranean Tourism Expo in Bodrum taking place in October,” the Mayor said.
Earlier, the team, who were invited by Skywings Istanbul, was hosted to a city tour of Istanbul the city of two continents visiting the European and the Asian sides of Istanbul with visits to the world famous Hagia Sophia Church of Constantinople.
At a meeting with the Bodrum Hoteliers Association, the President, Omer F. Dengiz told them that Bodrum has a population of 130,000 but receives over 1.3 million tourists every year mainly from Britain and Germany.
Bodrum has over 1000 hotels with about 150,000 rooms and more than 300,000 beds of cost between $50 and $500.
There are boutique hotels and luxury collections. Bodrum has been described as unique, chic and special by tourists who troop there from April to October every year.
After facility visits and city tour of Bodrum which included visits to the Castle and the Museum of Halicarnisus, a former ancient wonder of the world, the team departed for Antalya.
Antalya is the town where Paul the Apostle started his missionary journey in the Bible. Stopover at Cappadocia completed the tour.
The team from Turkey is expected in Nigeria for a series of road shows to introduce Turkey to Nigerian tour operators and professionals. A series of FamTrips are also planned to Turkey in the course of the year.
The Mayor of Bodrum presented a book on Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey to the Nigerians.
In her response, the team leader, Ms Mambo, told them that Nigerians are great travellers and are looking for new destinations and Turkey is perfect.
She introduced the team as experts to deliver the mandate desired by the Mayor.
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