Tag Archives: Istanbul

Ranked as one of Europe’s top destinations for solo travellers, İstanbul provides a wide range of activities and experiences for visitors travelling on their own. Thanks to the city’s endless diversity and welcoming atmosphere, solo travellers will find İstanbul – an enjoyable, vibrant, and easy-to-navigate destination recommended by many world-renowned travel publications for 2024. Home to museums, monuments, special exhibition programmes, picturesque streets, luxury hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, and upscale shopping options, this cosmopolitan metropolis beckons visitors to explore the city independently. Two Continents One City  If this is your first visit to İstanbul – the only city in the world built on two continents – start on the Historical Peninsula. The area houses numerous monuments, including the majestic Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern , as well as the Topkapı Palace and Blue Mosque . The İstanbul Archaeology Museum , set in the garden of the Topkapı Palace complex, is a must-see for anyone curious about Türkiye’s archaeological heritage. Of course, no trip to İstanbul is complete without a visit to the centuries-old Grand Bazaar . Similarly, the Spice Bazaar in Eminönü offers visitors a unique shopping experience in a historical setting. After sampling – and perhaps purchasing – various spices, herbal teas, dried fruits and vegetables or other delicacies at the bazaar, you can board a boat at the nearby ferry terminal and embark on a tour of the Bosphorus, where you’ll be greeted by the legendary Maiden’s Tower, the first of many splendid sights along the Bosphorus. Unique city experiences Suppose you land in Karaköy, a popular tourist destination known for its museums, modern cruise port Galataport İstanbul, and open-air shopping mall. You can also visit the İstanbul Museum of …

In recent years, Turkey has experienced a remarkable surge in popularity among Indian couples seeking the perfect destination wedding. This burgeoning trend underscores Turkey’s unique appeal, where in tradition harmoniously meets modernity. Turkey, renowned for its breathtaking natural landscapes, rich historical heritage, and delightful climate, has emerged as the perfect choice for Indian families looking for an exquisite wedding experience with its historical and ostentatious palaces, unique mansions, and luxury hotels and venues. The country’s abundance of bespoke bridal designers, luxury fashion boutiques, and artisan jewelers, cement the country’s status as the preferred destination for weddings. From bustling İstanbul streets to serene coastal havens along the Turquoise Aegean, Turkey provide a captivating backdrop for couples to craft their dream weddings. Destination management companies and event planners embrace diverse traditions, ensuring one’s vision becomes a splendid reality. With top-notch professionals excelling in offering delectable local Turkish and international cuisines, a wedding in Turkey promises to surpass expectations and leave an indelible mark on your guests’ hearts. Above all, it provide venues and catering facilities that can meet all kinds of demands, with a hospitable and tolerant approach that can adapt to every belief, tradition, and ritual. Here are some of Turkey’s most well-liked wedding and honeymoon locations. İstanbul: İstanbul, the sprawling cultural capital of Turkey, stands as a captivating bridge between East and West and is celebrated as a prime destination for weddings. Dotted with historic landmarks and waterfront Ottoman-era palaces, İstanbul presents a rich tapestry of exquisite venues, culinary delights, and entertainment options, providing couples with the perfect ingredients for an authentic wedding experience. Whether you envision a grand celebration or an intimate gathering, Istanbul caters to diverse tastes and …

Turkiye has recently been a popular vacation and wedding location for Indian tourists. According to the latest reports, the country has broken all previous inbound travel records from India this year as it saw an increase of 88.03% travellers until April 2023 alone. Istanbul and Nevsehir, two of the most popular tourist destinations this year, captivated visitors with their natural beauty. The country has emerged as an ideal destination for the FIT and MICE segments amongst Indian travellers, leading to an uptick in the number of Indians visiting Turkiye, this year. Having a lot to offer in terms of beautiful historical landmarks, rich local cuisine, vibrant nightlife, and exuberant art and music, Turkiye anticipate to host an even greater number of Indian guests by the end of 2023 as the wedding season approaches. With many Indian couples choosing to get married in the country’s scenic destinations, Turkiye is expected to host a significant number of Indian weddings this year. Istanbul, Antalya, Bodrum and Cappadocia are amongst the most preferred cities by Indian couples to host their destination weddings. Moreover, the upcoming festive and holiday seasons combined will also add up to the number of Indian travellers visiting the country as most of them prefer taking leisure vacations around the end of the year. Turkiye ranks as the fourth most popular destination for tourists worldwide after hosting 51.4 Million international visitors in 2022. The country aims to surpass all the previous records by hosting a significantly higher number of Indian and international visitors in 2023. For more about Turkiye: https://www.goturkiye.com/

The Grand Bazaar, İstanbul’s historical shopping and trade centre, was visited by 39,766,801 people in 2022, following its restoration. This magnificent structure with a labyrinthine interior features thousands of shops selling all kinds of products from textiles to antiques and has been a destination for shopping for centuries. The Grand Bazaar, a covered complex that resembles a small city with a daily circulation of thousands of employees and shoppers, started welcoming visitors to its renewed structure after the restoration last year. The number of visitors to the Grand Bazaar rose by almost 56% from 25.5 million in 2021, to approximately 40 million in 2022 out of which 2 Lakhs visitors were Indian travellers. With this figure, an average of 100,000 people per day visited the Grand Bazaar last year. İstanbul’s history and shopping route  Located between Nuruosmaniye, Mercan and Beyazıt in İstanbul, the history of the Grand Bazaar dates to the middle of the 15th century. Within the scope of the Ottoman-era foundation system that covered almost all socio-economic and cultural life, structures such as bazaars were built near religious and other social and charitable sites to meet such needs as maintenance and repair costs.  The foundation of the Grand Bazaar, one of the most important landmarks in İstanbul, was laid in 1461 with the structures erected by Fatih Sultan Mehmet to bring income to Hagia Sophia. The Grand Bazaar, which became the region’s most important trade centre over time, has started to serve as an important financial centre where jewels and precious metals from all over the world are traded. Defined not only as the oldest but as the largest shopping centre in the world, the Grand Bazaar has undergone …

Launching its flight on the Delhi-Istanbul sector, IndiGo has announced to use its expanding fleet of A320neo and A321neo aircraft to connect more Indian cities to China, Vietnam, England, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia. William Boulter, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo said, “We are looking very seriously into other points in South East Asia, notably the obvious ones of Vietnam and Myanmar. We also want to operate shortly to Saudi Arabia on the west side. We are seriously interested in getting in China as soon as we can. We are still selecting precise destinations.” The airline plans to add 125 A321neo aircraft in its fleet over number of years. In 2019, it will receive 20-25 of these aircraft from Airbus, he said. While Delhi-Istanbul flight is being operated in A321neo aircraft having 222 seats, Boulter clarified that the flights to China would be based on A320neos. The Delhi-Istanbul flight plans to connect 20 forward destinations using the codeshare pact that was signed between India’s largest airline and Turkish Airlines on December 21 last year. Codeshare pact allows passengers to travel on a single ticket on flights operated by the partner carrier. Source: PTI

IndiGo and Turkish Airlines have signed codeshare and mutual cooperation agreement enabling both carriers to provide more flexibility of choice to their respective customers to fly on sectors between India and Istanbul, and beyond. As part of its international expansion strategy, this is the first codeshare agreement for IndiGo. Through this cooperation, Turkish Airlines will be offering new destinations in India as Marketing Carrier on IndiGo operated flights, while IndiGo customers will be able to reach many European destinations through Turkish Airlines’ extensive network. This reciprocal arrangement will allow TK and 6E to provide seamless connections to their customers, besides enabling them to use through check-in and many other facilities. IndiGo will place its code “6E” on 20 points beyond Istanbul operated by Turkish Airlines. Similarly, Turkish Airlines will use its code “TK” on IndiGo-operated flights within India. Rahul Bhatia, Director and Interim Chief Executive Officer, IndiGo, said, “We are excited to be launching our first codeshare with Turkish Airlines. Apart from supporting our upcoming direct services to Istanbul, this strategic partnership will expand the choices available to our customers for journeys beyond Istanbul, using Turkish Airlines’ extensive network. It will become possible for our customers to book itineraries into many cities in Europe on IndiGo, using Turkish Airlines and experiencing their renowned inflight service.” Bilal Ekşi, CEO and Deputy Chairman of the Board, Turkish Airlines, said, “We are happy to host new operators in our main hub Istanbul, and IndiGo will be the first Indian carrier starting flights to Turkey. We believe that it would be a great opportunity to improve our cooperation with our new codeshare partner IndiGo, which will provide new services and destinations for our passengers …

In an initiative to promote Turkey as a preferred wedding destination for Indian weddings, Turkey Cultural & Tourism board, India, recently organised a familiarisation trip for top Indian wedding planning agencies. Agencies were selected on the quality of their work as well as their experience in planning weddings abroad. The visit offered the Indian contingent with the opportunity to view and experience Turkey as a unique destination for holding Indian weddings. The week-long trip had wedding planners travelling to cities of Antalya, Bodrum, Istanbul where they had the opportunity to visit more than 25 hotels and resorts and interact with the representatives of these luxury hospitality chains. In addition, a city tour was also organised in each city where the Indian delegation had the chance to visit some of regions most popular tourist attractions. Special cultural events, culinary galas and B2B sessions also kept the delegation busy. The trip helped wedding planners understand the current offerings in Turkey and how it could be explored as a destination for lavish Indian weddings. Talking about reasons to promote Turkey as a wedding destination, Deniz Ersöz, Culture and Tourism Counsellor, Turkish Culture and Tourism Office in India, said, “Weddings in India are becoming larger than life and destination weddings are getting more and more popular among Indians. Turkey has great potential to become a wedding destination and the feedback we got from the wedding planners after the Fam trip was very encouraging. It is a destination with the most amazing and diverse topography, which is perfect for an Indian wedding as you could have every event set against a unique backdrop.”

The Turkish Tourism Board in India recently announced that the number of Indian tourists travelling to Turkey has doubled with 95 per cent increase from January to July. Commenting on the growth, Deniz Ersöz, Culture & Tourism Counsellor, Embassy of the Republic of Turkey said, “In 2017, Turkey hosted more than 32 million international tourists while from India the number was 87,000. This year, from January to July, we recorded 25 per cent increase in the number of overall tourists. That means we will be hosting 40 million international tourists by the end of 2018. When we look at figures from India, we see 95 per cent increase for the same period. If this trend continues we will be hosting almost 2 lakh Indian tourists by the end of this year.” Ersöz further added, “Istanbul, Antalya, Cappadocia, Troy and Izmir are extremely popular with Indian travellers. However, Bodrum and Marmaris have also emerged as major tourist attractions in recent past. In addition to that, Konya where Celaleddin Rumi spent his last 45 years, the sacred site where he was buried is also among the popular destinations for Indians.”

Addressing the UFTAA 2017 Mid-Year Forum in City of Salerno, Italy, Sunil Kumar R, President, UFTAA, revealed that the organisation is going to come up with a global tourism office in Istanbul by later next month. “UFTAA Global Tourism Office at Istanbul is a new initiative of UFTAA. At the previous world congress of UFTAA held in Istanbul, we did confirm that UFTAA apart from travel matters will embark on tourism, MICE and education in a big way and try to create more opportunities in this area. In terms of tourism, a big initiative has been declared by the UFTAA Board of Directors for establishing the UFTAA global tourism office in Istanbul, which will be manned professionally connecting travel professionals all over the world, encouraging B2B activities, encouraging business exchange between UFTAA associations and UFTAA affiliates.  We are confident that this UFTAA tourism office will also come up with certain systems where we could gift our members certain credibility and status so that when someone sells tourism online, there is a certification from UFTAA which supports such agencies. However, this is a long-term goal. We first need to get members on board, keep the membership active and hope that UFTAA gets new members from different countries around the world,” adds Kumar. He further informed that UFTAA is in talks with the new Secretary General of UNWTO to inaugurate the new office sometime later next month. He says that due to the Qatar crisis, the work on the UFTAA Global headquarters has been kept on the back burner and hopefully there will be a headway on the same very soon.

In a show of solidarity to the tourism community, the United Federation of Travel Agents Associations (UFTAA) board has decided to stick to its original decision to have its Golden Jubilee Congress in Istanbul after reviewing the current situation. Sunil Kumar, President, UFTAA, said, “November 25 and 26, 2016, will witness the Golden Jubilee Congress of UFTAA in Istanbul. One of our most prime member associations, TURSAB, will be co-ordinating this event which is being supported by the Ministry of Tourism & Culture, Turkey. The Golden Jubilee Congress is anticipated to give UFTAA a huge push to its next level and since it is held in the most beautiful locales and hotels Turkey has to offer, it is anticipated that this will be a successful event.”