A Step Taken for Turkey's Tourism Century Goal: Search Conferences Started in Burdur

The Search Conferences, carried out within the scope of the "Tourism Century Project" initiated to increase Turkey's tourism potential and contribute to the development of the country, started in Burdur, which was selected as the pilot province.

The Turkey Travel Agencies Association (TÜRSAB) Search Conferences, held at the Lavender Hill Hotel of Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, were attended by Governor Türker Öksüz, Provincial Director of Culture and Tourism İbrahim Emre Gürsoy, TÜRSAB President Firuz Bağlıkaya, Vice Rectors Prof. Dr. Oğuz Gürsoy and Prof. Dr. Hakan Öner, as well as numerous industry representatives, academics and press members.

The conference, which started with a moment of silence and the reading of the National Anthem, continued with the viewing of promotional films. At the conference, which continued with opening speeches, Provincial Director of Culture and Tourism İbrahim Emre Gürsoy, TÜRSAB President Firuz Bağlıkaya and Burdur Governor Türker Öksüz each gave a speech. 

In the speeches, the goals of developing strategic plans for sustainable growth and development in Turkey's tourism sector and new marketing strategies and sustainable tourism practices were emphasized. 

In his speech, Governor Öksüz said, “Our Burdur is a city with high tourism potential in the Mediterranean Region with these values it has. In addition, among our 14 geographically marked products, we have the potential to offer unique tastes to its visitors with gastronomic values such as Burdur Meatball, Gölhisar Roast, Burdur Walnut Paste and Poppy Halva, which we could not count. We want to draw a roadmap to reach our goal, prepare an action plan in this direction and realize tourism initiatives by adhering to this action plan. In this context, it is important for our province to take the right steps in time and as needed. We sincerely believe that the potential of our Burdur is much more and we continue our efforts in this direction. In this context, in October 2023, under the coordination of our Governorship, we held the "Burdur Tourism Problems and Solution Proposals Workshop" in cooperation with the Burdur Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism and the Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Tourism Management and Hotel Management Vocational School. In this workshop, the existing tourism potential of our province was discussed comprehensively in four titles as Cultural Tourism, Gastronomy Tourism, Ecotourism and Sports Tourism, problems and solution proposals were discussed, and suggestions were presented. The outputs of the workshop were reported and a roadmap was put forward. We believe that this conference, which is held on the issues of evaluating the tourism potential of our city, developing tourism dynamics and tourism areas, and finally increasing tourism revenues, will guide us.’ he used the expressions.

The Search Conferences in Burdur are considered an important step to evaluate Turkey's potential in tourism and bring together stakeholders in the sector to produce common solutions. In the ongoing sessions of the conference, tourism opportunities and potential will be discussed, and academics and industry representatives will contribute to the determination of future strategies.