Turkish travel journalists fascinated by Sri Lanka
View(s):In a whirlwind five days of touring Sri Lanka, a Turkish duo of TV journalists shot 12 hours of footage visiting many parts of the country and hopes their travel documentary will spur more Turks to visit Sri Lanka.
Also romantically linked, and planning to marry in Istanbul in June, both Ozlem Nese Tunca (Ms) and Yasin Esirgenc (Mr) believe the travel programme on Sri Lanka will create more awareness for the people of Turkey.
Ozlem Nese Tunca and Yasin Esirgenc
“It will definitely make an impact and I’m sure many Turks will visit Sri Lanka,” noted Ozlem, presenter of the “I am Travelling the World” TV programme on ‘Kanalturk’, Turkey’s 6th highest-rated TV station.The travel journalists were hosted by travel firm, H.I.S., a fully owned subsidiary of a Japan-based public listed group with 387 offices worldwide including Sri Lanka. Nilusha Kodithuwakku, General Manager – H.I.S. Travel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, the Colombo office, handled the entire tour arrangements for the visiting journalists.
The duo is not weary despite visiting 40 countries in the past two years and leaving Turkey, once every 10 days, on an overseas tour. “We enjoy our work and find it fun,” said Ozlem.
They visited the Pinnawela Elephant at Pinnawela, Kandy, Dambula, Sigiriya and most parts of the south, and in most cases left the hotel at dawn and returned late in the evening after streets interviews and shooting Ozlem’s presentation of the programme
During the interview at the end of their tour on Sunday evening, Yasin, the director of the programme and also cameraman, showed clear footage of the places they visited and voice cuts of Ozlem as she spoke to people and explained the various traditions and habits of Sri Lankans.
Sri Lanka is still a minute market for the Turks with an average 114 visitors per month. According to Ms Kodithuwakku, Turkish arrivals in January-October 2012 totalled 1138 against 913 in the same 2011 period.
“Currently we see an increase of about 25 per cent from Turkey,” she said, adding that her company recently opened its Colombo branch.
The global company accounts for 1.5 million customers per year while Colombo aims to attract more customers from Japan.“We are also working with non-Japanese market as well,” she said adding that they see a lucrative business in Sri Lanka for travellers from Turkey helped also with Turkish Airlines starting flights.
The Turkish carrier is extending its Istanbul – Male service to Colombo from February 1, with five flights per week.
The Sri Lankan travel documentary will run in three separate segments with each being of one hour duration next month.
Is Sri Lanka different from other places? “Sri Lanka is definitely cleaner than India; the people are helpful and there are plenty of elephants,” said Yasin.
“Sigiriya is an amazing place … something we have never seen in any other part of the world,” he said, “it is like a dream”.The couple left for the Maldives to spend four days there and prepare another of their endless travel documentaries.
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