There are issues with hotel occupancy, but we believe this is temporary

Hediye Güral Gür, Chairman of the Board of NG Hotels and Chairman of the Tourism Sector Committee of the Service Exporters' Association, was a guest on Arzu Maliki's Üst Düzey program aired on Bloomberg HT.

Gür stated, "The concentration of investments in a single region creates supply-demand issues. There are issues with hotel occupancy, but we believe this is temporary. It is true that we are experiencing a demand contraction."

The highlights of Gür's statements are as follows:

"Service export is an association that brings together exporter sectors that completely provide foreign currency from abroad and operates under TİM. It is actually a very new association, only 6 years old. There are 10 different sectors under the association, with tourism being one of the most important locomotive sectors because tourism accounts for 49.5% of total service exports. Besides tourism, there are sectors like logistics, IT, cultural-entertainment—which includes TV series, one of our biggest strengths abroad—health, education, gastronomy, and ports. These sectors truly contribute to our exports. In the world, Turkey ranks 30th in goods exports but 23rd in service exports. Our share of service exports is increasing every day. As an association, we continue to support our exporters. In 2023, we achieved 101 billion dollars in service exports, and we have a target of 120 billion dollars for 2024. I hope there will be no deviation from this target, and we will bring this foreign currency to our country."

"We are experiencing difficulties with personnel."

Evaluating the prominent issues in service exports, Gür said, "Our most important issue right now is personnel. Beyond skilled personnel, we are even struggling to find entry-level employees. These problems started during the pandemic when workers shifted to other sectors because they didn't know when the hotels would reopen."

Gür added, "We also have a brand perception issue. Efforts are being made to improve this brand perception and to attract wealthier tourists from abroad to Turkey. Our sole assurance and support are our Ministry and the Tourism Development Agency. The number of tourists from the Far East and Asia is low, and we are working to increase this. The target for American tourists is 2 million. The goal, as you know, is to extend tourism throughout 12 months and increase per capita tourism income. The concentration of investments in a single region creates balance issues in terms of supply and demand. The Ministry also has priority areas for investment in tourism. There are many destinations for cultural, faith, and plateau tourism where investments can be made. Investments need to shift to these areas."

“There are issues with hotel occupancy”

Gür stated that there are currently issues with hotel occupancy, saying, "We all believe this is not permanent, so we are not losing hope. Hopefully, next year will be a year where we achieve 80% occupancy. When there is excess supply, it affects occupancy rates.”

Responding to the question, "Do Turkish tourism professionals want the visa-on-arrival practice to be stopped?", Gür said, “There is a rising perception right now that the Greek Islands are beautiful and more affordable. We need to understand vacationers who want to take advantage of this, so I can’t really say anything against it... Here, the demand needs to be evaluated properly. During the last holiday, it was in the news that Rhodes closed its gates, and many people were left stranded. Agencies planning these holidays need to approach the issue with sensitivity. We might be losing some guests during this period, but I want to believe this is also temporary. Of course, with increasing costs, tourism professionals are trying to cope with certain challenges. Once we balance these out, everything will fall into place.”

Evaluating the performance of NG Hotels, Gür said, “We are also affected by challenging times. We continue to invest for the future. We are investing in human resources as well. In past years, we used to get forward bookings, but now we are seeing more last-minute reservations. Vacationers are deciding within a week. We never had an aggressive growth strategy; instead of the number of hotels, we focus on how many happy guests we host and how well we perform. Currently, we operate 4 hotels. We have two more investments in the stage of obtaining construction permits. We have always dreamed of an overseas investment, with Saudi Arabia and Dubai on our radar. Domestically, we have a project in Antalya and another one in Bodrum,” she added.