Zirve Eki - ISTANBUL REstate

16-17 Haziran 2010
Turizm
Yat›r›mlar›
Andreas Martin
Katk›lar›yla
Okay, I think we can start. "HTL Foruma Hoflgeldiniz." A very warm
welcome to HDL forum here at Istanbul Restate. May I kindly ask you
to switch your handy off or at least switch your ringer off. This will be
very kind of you for the next three hours of program which I would like
to introduce to you. Benim ad›m Andreas Martin. My name is Andreas
Martin and I will introduce, I will guide you through this 3 hour session
this noon and afternoon at HDL forum where we are going to talk
about hotel, tourism and leisure topics. In the real estate research report
from Dr. Can Fuat Gürlesel we heard yesterday that Istanbul together
with Paris is the most sought after destination in Europe for hotel
developments. However, how vulnerable the hotel and tourism sector
is can be actually seen in two regions of the world: the Gulf of Mexico
where daily thousands of gallons or millions of liter of oil is spoiling the
ocean, spoiling the coast of some of the American states might be soon
even when it comes to Europe with the gulf stream. Tourists are not
traveling to Florida anymore. Hotel personnel might lose their drops,
fishermen might lose their drops, there is a very dramatic situation over
there in the United States. And even though BP just announced yesterday
a 20 billion Euro- Dollar fund to cover damages instead of paying
dividends to their shareholders. I think we will not know today what
further actions might be necessary over there. We can look at Greece
where they have dramatic budget problems. The tourism industry is
suffering. People are not traveling to Greece at the moment from abroad
because of the uncertain situation. Spain is struggling as well. Today
the EU summit in Brussels will discuss that. So tourism industry is a very
vulnerable industry. But, nevertheless the team of PKF Hotel Experts
Gayrimenkul Zirvesi 10
Vienna and GEWINN which is a leading business magazine in Austria did
organize a program about hotel and tourism development in Europe, in
general, but in Turkey in particular as well. And we will for the next three
hours compare with you international hotel standards with Turkish hotel
standards. We will introduce to you some of the Turkish brands that are
on the expansion paths in Turkey and on abroad. And you will get to
know the expansion strategies of some of the major international brands
into Turkey. One of the major questions for hotel investment today in
Europe, in general, and in Turkey is that "did they change in the past and
will they be even adjusted in the future?" And finally we will leave this
great city of Istanbul and take you to the so called secondary cities in
Turkey and I can tell you there are few. To show you the development
potential that Turkey offers for hotel real estate developers and hotel
operators and hotel investors - that should be the goal of this session.
Before we start let me introduce to you these two gentlemen and I will
join you now. These two gentlemen are the driving force behind the
hotel, tourism and leisure forum here at Istanbul REstate which we are
organizing for the second time now. Georg Wailand is the publisher of
GEWINN, the leading Austrian business magazine and Michael Widmann
is the general manager, general director, I tend to say general manager
because we work in the hotel industry, the managing director of PKF
Hotel Experts in Vienna. Georg Wailand, the motor of this event is building
the bridge into a great future. Yesterday you were in a panel called
"regional development and European funding" with some of the participants
where members of the EU parliament representing the EU. Even though
Turkey is not yet EU member, might be soon. "Are there already bridges
from the EU into the tourism industry?"
GYODER 159