Turkish property market information
Turkish property market information
Turkey is
becoming more popular year on year. Flying to Turkey has been revolutionised
by the arrival of budget airlines, so wherever the house of your choice
is located, it will be readily accessible. According to figures from the
Turkish Statistics Board (TUIK), a record-breaking 21.1 million foreign
tourists visited Turkey in 2005 – an increase of 20.4 per cent from the
previous year, which was the most successful on record at that time. By
far the largest proportion of visitors came from Europe, in particular
Germany (the country of origin for 16.2 per cent of visitors) and neighbouring
Bulgaria (14.2 per cent).
Last
year's outstanding results were the continuation of a process which has
been ongoing for several decades as Turkey has sought to increase its share
of the lucrative international tourism market. According to figures released
by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), the number of foreign tourists
visiting Turkey has increased 15-fold in the last quarter-century, with
the figure of 1.2 million foreign arrivals in 1980 now dwarfed by 2005's
figures. A study presented at the last general assembly of UNWTO predicts
that the number of international visitors to the country will increase
by approximately ten per cent per annum for the next decade, making it
one of the best-performing countries in the world in tourism terms.
The
increase in the number of foreign arrivals is thanks in no small part to
the promotional efforts of the Turkish government, which has been aggressively
marketing Turkey as a holiday destination for some time. Official sources
state that this year the government will be spending over £22.7 million
on promotion in more than 70 countries worldwide; while the traditional
sources of tourist revenue (ie Europe) will continue to be targeted, the
government will increase its spending in potentially lucrative growth markets
such as China (the ‘special focus' of the year's marketing plan, with spending
in China increasing by 50 per cent), Japan and Korea.
Turkey
is also looking to expand upon its traditional summer-tourism appeal with
the development of new out-of-season incentives to visitors, including
thermal tourism (see related article) and archaeological tourism. Turkey
has one of the world's richest cultural heritages, and sites of historic
interest are becoming of increasing value as tourist destinations in their
own right. Typically, visitors to Turkey spend time in coastal resorts
and the former capital Istanbul; opening up new tourism sites in the country's
interior will have a significant effect on the economic development of
these areas – with positive knock-on effects for the country's burgeoning
property market.
Similarly, the expansion of the tourist season from what is now predominantly a summer market should lead to much greater returns for property owners looking to let out their homes. While returns on coastal villas and apartments have been very respectable, under current market conditions they tend to be garnered during a relatively limited period during the summer months. The government's efforts to promote out-of-season tourism can only be good news for homeowners – especially those who have bought in coastal locations near sites of special archaeological or historic interest.
Heating up the tourist market
A
new initiative by the Turkish government could soon be bringing billions
of extra euros into the country's already burgeoning tourism coffers –
by tapping into a resource lying directly under the feet of visitors to
Turkey. The Thermal Tourism Cities Project (TTCP) launched in January by
Turkey's culture and tourism ministry aims to establish the country as
one of the world's leading thermal tourism destinations, unlocking an estimated
£8 billion-worth of potential revenue, according to the Turkish Geothermal
Association (TGA).
Thermal tourism – a major and profitable market sector internationally – is an industry based on the apparent curative and cosmetic powers of thermal springs. For millennia people with any of a vast range of ailments, from arthritis and neuritis via burns and sprains to insomnia and depression, have visited thermal springs around the world in an attempt to gain relief from their suffering, usually by bathing in the warm and frequently chemically active waters or mud issuing from vents in the earth. Famous thermal sites in the UK include Bath, known to the Romans as Aquae Sulis, which still generates a solid tourism income from its famous springs.
According to the TGA, Turkey has the world's seventh-largest (and Europe's largest) thermal resources with over 1,300 sites of thermal interest across the country. Despite this abundance of thermal riches, however, the Turkish thermal tourism market is near-virgin territory: only 10,000 foreign tourists visited Turkish thermal sites in 2005, compared with the nearly 12 million visitors who made the trip to the Japanese spa city of Beppu last year alone. The TGA estimates that the country's thermal resources could cater for over 30 million visitors annually, a large proportion of which would come from outside Turkey.
'The thermal waters of Turkey – among the top seven countries in terms of the wealth of this resource – are better than those of Europe because of the flow and heat of the Turkish waters, as well as their various physical and chemical features,' said TGA president Orhan Mertoglu.
The TTCP has divided the country into various regions according to their thermal potential, with four main areas being accorded top priority: central Anatolia; southern Marmara; Phrygia; and the southern Aegean, including Izmir, Manisa, Aydin and Denizli. These areas will receive extra government funding both to develop thermal sites and to promote new and existing facilities at home and abroad.
Commercial interest in Turkey's thermal potential has already made itself known in the form of a £25.6-million investment by French and Turkish firms and governmental bodies into the city of Denizli, some 200 kilometres north of Dalaman. The Pamukkale Thermal Cure Centre, due to be completed in approximately seven years, will eventually be able to handle some 1,500 visitors per day, according to the minister for tourism, Attila Koc.
The potential impact of the TTCP on Turkey's blossoming property market is significant, according to many analysts. The growth of international tourism into Turkey has played a substantial role in driving forwards the country's current property boom, and the millions of extra visitors who could result from the success of the TTCP could both solidify the existing market and open up new areas.
'If you look at Turkey's property market right now, it is overwhelmingly coastal in nature,' said regional property expert Pik Greune. 'The vast interior is a markedly untapped resource and prices tend to be significantly lower than on the coast. However, this could change if the thermal initiative is successful: the flow of millions of visitors into the interior would create a whole new tourism industry and property values around the main thermal sites, receiving thousands of visitors annually, could skyrocket.
'Not only do you have investment issues such as rental returns to consider,' he continued, 'you also have the wider possibility of establishing retirement or residential health complexes which have proved very profitable elsewhere in Europe. This could be the beginning of a very interesting and lucrative shift in an already dynamic market.'
