"There is a problem with hotel occupancy, we think this is temporary"

NG Hotels Chairman of the Board and Service Exporters’ Association Tourism Sector Committee Chairman Hediye Güral Gür told Bloomberg HT, "There is a problem with hotel occupancy rates, we think this is temporary." NG Hotels Chairman of the Board and Service Exporters’ Association Tourism Sector Committee Chairman Hediye Güral Gür was Arzu Maliki’s guest on the Üst Düzey program broadcast on Bloomberg HT. Gür made the following statement, “The fact that investments are confined to a single region creates a problem in supply-demand. There is a problem with hotel occupancy rates, we think this is temporary. It is true that we are experiencing a contraction in demand.” The highlights of Gür’s statements are as follows; “Service exports are a union that brings together exporting sectors that provide foreign exchange entirely from abroad, and it is under the body of TİM. It is actually a very new 6-year-old union. There are 10 different sectors under the union, of which tourism is one of the most important locomotive sectors because tourism provides 49.5 percent of total service exports. Apart from this, there is logistics, informatics, and our cultural-entertainment sector, which includes TV series, and is one of our greatest strengths abroad. There is the health sector, education, gastronomy and ports. There are sectors that really contribute to our exports. Turkey ranks 30th in the world in terms of goods exports, but we rank 23rd in terms of service exports. Our share from service exports is also increasing every day. As a union, we continue to support our exporters. In 2023, we had an export of 101 billion dollars in terms of service exports. We have a target of 120 billion dollars for 2024. I hope there will be no deviation from this target and we will provide this foreign currency to our country.” “We are experiencing difficulties in personnel” Evaluating the prominent problems in service exports, Gür said, “The most important problem for us right now is personnel. Now, in addition to qualified personnel, there is also a problem in the personnel you will start from scratch. These difficulties started during the pandemic period, employees shifted to other sectors because they did not know when the hotels would open.” Gür said, “Apart from this, we have a brand perception, and work is being done to develop this brand perception and bring richer tourists from abroad to Turkey. Our only assurance and support is our Ministry and the Tourism Development Agency. The number of tourists coming from the Far East and Asia is low, and we are working to increase this as well. The target for American tourists is also 2 million tourists. As you know, the target is to spread tourism over 12 months, and the way to increase tourism income per capita is through this. The fact that investments are also confined to a single region creates problems in the balance of supply and demand. The Ministry also has priority regions for tourism. There are many destinations where investments can be made here, and for culture, faith and highland tourism. Investments should shift to these places.” “There is a problem with hotel occupancy” Gür said that there is currently a problem with hotel occupancy, and said, “We all believe that this will not be permanent, so we do not give up hope. I hope that next year we will have a year where we will have 80 percent occupancy. When there is excess supply, it is reflected in occupancy.” “Do Turkish tourism professionals want visa application on arrival to be stopped?” Gür answered the question, “There is a rising perception right now that the Greek Islands are very beautiful and more affordable. It is necessary to understand the holidaymakers who want to benefit from this, of course I cannot say anything… Here again, the demand needs to be evaluated well. It was in the news last holiday, Rhodes closed its doors and many people were left at the door. Especially the agencies planning these holidays need to approach the issue with sensitivity. We may be losing some of our guests these days, but I want to believe that this is temporary. Of course, tourism professionals are also trying to endure certain things with the increasing costs. When we can balance these, everything will be fine anyway.” Evaluating the performance of NG Hotels, Gür said, “We also get our share of difficult times. We continue our investments for the future. We also invest in human resources. In the past years, we used to always get reservations for the future, now we are getting last minute reservations like this. Holidaymakers make decisions within a week. We have never had an aggressive growth strategy, in other words, we look at how many happy guests we host in a hotel and how well we do business rather than the number of hotels. We currently provide service in 4 hotels. We have 2 more investments for which we are in the process of obtaining construction permits. We have always dreamed of investing abroad, Saudi Arabia and Dubai are on our radar. We also have a project in Antalya and a project in Bodrum domestically,” he added.