Erzurum Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Mehmet Sekmen said that they are targeting 2.5 million visitors in Palandöken this year.
Sekmen stated at the press conference he held in a hotel in Istanbul that they want to make Erzurum one of the brand cities of the world.
In this context, Sekmen stated that they took the first step with the Palandöken Ski Center, whose management they took over in 2016, and said, "We reorganized the entire infrastructure on the mountain. We activated the technical capacity at 100 percent. We made Ejder our main destination brand."
Sekmen pointed out that there are 55 tracks of international standards in Erzurum and continued as follows:
"We have the longest runway in Turkey with 12.5 kilometers. The total length of our runways is 87 kilometers. We have established a lift network that can carry 24 thousand people per hour. We make artificial snow at a rate of 400 meters per hour. All systems such as lighting, personnel management, monitoring with cameras, and artificial snow are managed intelligently and remotely. We take security precautions on the mountain by monitoring with cameras 24/7. In this way, we prevent situations such as getting lost. "We have not had any missing persons in 6 years."
10 kilometers of night skiing opportunity
Emphasizing that they created snow storage warehouses in Palandöken, Sekmen emphasized that they preserved 60 of the 100 units of snow and increased the quality of the track by laying it under artificial snow.
Sekmen stated that there is a 4-5 kilometer night skiing opportunity in Europe, while it is 10 kilometers in Erzurum.
Tourism in Erzurum spread over 12 months
Explaining that they built 20 football fields at FIFA standard in Palandöken to spread tourism over 12 months, Sekmen stated that they made a big difference by spreading sports tourism to high altitudes.
Sekmen underlined that Palandöken is located 15 minutes from the airport and 5 minutes from the city; "This is our most important feature that distinguishes us from other ski resorts in the world. Palandöken hosted 1 million 950 thousand people last year. We aim for 2.5 million visitors this year."
Explaining that they received approval from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for the Konaklı Ski Center, which they named "Palandöken 2", and that they will establish a holiday village at the foot of the mountain, Sekmen said, "We will do the project with the build-operate-transfer model. We are planning an area that can be used for 12 months. An investment of at least 2 billion dollars is planned for Konaklı. We will connect both ski resorts with lifts. We aim to complete this project in 5 years. "We will make Palandöken the Davos of the world."