TURKISH TOUR GUIDES STRIVING TO SURVIVE

Turkish Tour Guides Striving to Survive

Turkish Tour Guides Striving To Survive
Beeing a tour guide in Turkey has been a prestigious job in the past; but in the last years beeing a tour guide in Turkey is associated with a deep crisis. It is no longer possible for majority of the licensed tour guides of Turkey to survive, working only as tour guide in Turkey. The statistics show that the avarage number of working days a year for the turkish tour guides have fallen down sharply. This implies that turkish tour guides in general can no longer expect to have yearly total revenues, which would enable them to make the ends meet by working only as a tour guide in Turkey. Now, tour guide job in Turkey is considered to be not as the primary job but as secondary job.
I can summarize some of the causes and reasons for why tour guide job in Turkey is now in what I simply can call a crisis.
1) Turkey has invested a lot in mass-tourism. Though the number of the tourists has increased a lot in the last two decades, what we can define as the avarage income of the tourists has fallen down sharply. This has had its reflections in the revenues of the turkish tourguides. Previously, the turkish tour guides relied much on such extra revenues as commissions obtained at sales places where they assisted the tourists in purchasing carpets, jewellery, leather and similar, and tips from the tourists.
2) Tour guides in Turkey complain also about the “all inclusive” packages at the hotels in the turkish resorts. Because of all inclusive packages, a decreasing number of tourists participate on excursions, which in its turn leads to a smaller number of engagements for the tour guides in Turkey. Tourists in Turkey simply prefer to stay at their hotels with all-inclusive packages and try to utilize this possibility rather than spending money on excursions.
3) Gulf Crises of 1990 and 1991, September 11 and the American involvement in Afganistan and Irak, and similar events brought about difficulties and crises for the world tourism industry , also having its negative impact on Turkish tourism. There is no doubt that turkish guides were affected badly by all these developments in form of decreased revenues.
4) The law on supply-and-demand has also its reflections on the wages for turkish tour guides.
The wages for the tour guides in Turkey have fallen down sharply in the recent time. Especially in the seventies and eighties, turkish tour guides were highly demanded and called by turkish travel agencies; now they have to strive to obtain engagements.
The situation beeing so for turkish tour guides, it is understandable that they seek other jobs to survive economically.
This new was releases by Sinan Tortum
Tour Guide in Turkey
http://sinan_tortum.sitemynet.com/tourism/