VitrA Çağdaş Mimarlık Dizisi - Arkitera

appraisal
Evolution of Tourism Industry*
Tourism, subject to this book is a young sector. It has a history of 100 or 150 years in the
world, regardless of independent travellers or adventurers such as Marco Polo and Evliya
Çelebi. Looking at Turkey and Anatolia specifically, it is much younger. We can say that
the emergence of the sector coincides with the use of steam engines in ships and trains.
Tourism, as we know it today, i.e. with its transportation, transfer, front and back services
and service structures, has probably a history of sixty to seventy years in the world and
does not go, beyond 30 to 35 years in our country.
The investors’ profile in the business can be considered in this context. The profile of tourism
investors in Turkey, are mainly related to the dynamics of thirty years ago. First of all
we can talk about the construction industry which holds capital, labour and know-how in
the hand. This industry operated abroad, especially in countries such as Iraq, Libya, Russia
and had a remarkable ability to produce. They sought out investment opportunities
within the country and embarked on the promotion of tourism investment in the Özal
period. This being the case, the construction industry mentioned earlier, and the people
and institutions in the textile sector who have realized surplus-value on the other hand,
started to enter the tourism business as a new business area. These investors were not
adequately equipped in terms of subtleties and details of tourism in the 80s. The tour
operators, who increasingly found Turkey popular, couldn’t guide the investors. So, naturally
the architectural needs were not set forth in a healthy way. Facilities were partly
imitated or some of the appreciated concepts were rebuilt.
We have developed tourist facilities according to the origin of the tourists. According to
this approach, that I call “colonial tourism”, i.e. German Tourists would come to Turkey
with a German airplane, would be welcomed in their own language and brought to the
facilities and here again, they would have a holiday with people from their own country.
Facilities were organized by their understanding of music, food, entertainment, and recreation,
which as a result led to an architecture detailed and built according to the tourist’s
familiar way of life. In such a tourism business environment, it was inevitable that the
architecture would follow this approach. After some time we headed for an understanding
of what we call a “themed” hotel, which was thoroughly exaggerated. Particularly
architects who are conscious of the local architecture, including local residents and representatives
of the sector increasingly criticized this trend. However, surprisingly, the polls
done by tour operators revealed that the tourists staying in these facilities were very
satisfied and happy with the situation.
Towards the end of the 90s, understanding of mass tourism all over the world started to
change step by step, various travel and holiday options other than sea-sun-sand travels
in the summer and skiing in the winter, began to emerge. For instance, the relative weight
of tendencies such as; mountain climbing, forest trekking, rafting or exploring a city,
or to experience the life, culture of entertainment and eating with the local community,
showed a continuous increase. The process of solving the structure of a uniform mass
tourism, especially towards the end of the 90s particularly emphasized the importance
of the local. People who came to Cappadocia wanted to meet specific things which did
not belong to their own country. The fashionable and common saying; “think global,
act local”, also reflected as an understanding in the architecture of tourism. Eclectic and
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