Tweet
WHAT ARMENIANS DID ON THEIR SUMMER VACATION: AVOID TURKEY
by Marianna Grigoryan
EurasiaNet
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61905
Sept 10 2010
NY
As Armenia's summer vacation season winds down, one country, Turkey,
will be missing from many of the usual travel tales. With Armenia's
attempts to reconcile with Turkey now at a standstill, Armenian
tourists this summer largely bucked the trend of recent years and
gave Turkey's sun-drenched beaches a miss.
Over the past few years, Yerevan's TezTour agency saw summer sales
of travel packages to Antalya, the popular Turkish Mediterranean Sea
resort town, increase annually by 30 to 40 percent. Not any more.
"Anything can influence people's decision to spend their vacation in
this or that place. In this situation, the Turkish coasts are really
vulnerable [to a decline in Armenian visitors]," said the firm's
Yerevan office director, Narine Davtian. "Business should have nothing
to do with politics, but, in this case, they're interconnected."
The posters advertising vacations in Turkey that used to flood
Yerevan each summer have largely disappeared. [For details, see
the EurasiaNet's archive.] In their place, other posters warn city
residents against vacationing in Turkey, urging them "not to arm the
Turkish army" by putting money into Turkey's economy.
Some travel agencies refused to sell tours to Antalya outright. First
Travel Director Karen Andreasian claims safety concerns for Armenian
tourists amidst the uptick in tensions between Yerevan and Ankara
drove his agency's decision. "I urge everybody to boycott Antalya,"
Andreasian said.
With Turkey now blackballed, tourists headed instead to the beaches
of Spain, Greece, Tunisia, and longtime seasonal favorite, Georgia.
Armenian holiday destinations are frequently seen as too expensive.
The government maintains that such boycotts are not part of a specific
policy, but, rather, the natural result of Turkey's alleged inability
to meet Armenia halfway on a reconciliation agreement. Turkey, in turn,
blames Armenia. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan this April called
a timeout for attempts to normalize ties with Turkey; Ankara broke
its diplomatic relations with Yerevan in 1993 to protest the war with
Turkish ally Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Politics is politics, but it influences the moods and preferences
of the people," said Mari Grigorian, deputy head of the Ministry of
Economy's department for tourism and regional economic development.
"We should use any chance to promote domestic tourism and make it
attractive for people."
Grigorian, who is no relation to this reporter, said that the
government has no official data about the number of Armenians who
travel to Turkey each year since the two countries do not have
diplomatic relations.
Aside from diplomatic wrangles, though, Armenians have also been
subjected to a full-force television campaign to steer clear of both
Turkish beach resorts and Turkish products.
In one TV ad, a Turkish-speaking man, dressed as an official, is
featured sitting under a portrait of the founder of the Republic of
Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the Turkish flag. Smiling, the man
via a voiceover thanks Armenians for boosting Turkey's economy and
strengthening its army by buying Turkish products. He ends by saying
"thank you" in Armenian -- "shnorhakalutiun."
At the same time, news coverage of Turkey on Armenian television,
particularly Public Television, has become notably chilly after
earlier attempts at emphasizing the chances for reconciliation.
Some analysts see nothing unusual in the coverage or in Armenians'
decision to bypass Antalya and other Turkish resorts this year.
"We must keep in mind what's going on. There has been an attempt to
normalize relations, and Turkey didn't support this move despite many
actions by the Armenian authorities," opined Armenian National Academy
of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies Director Ruben Safrastian,
a Turkish studies specialist. Disappointment with Turkey followed
and soured the public mood, Safrastian believes.
One sociologist agrees. "People had great expectations, and once
again they saw it was useless to expect anything from a country like
Turkey; all this would surely affect the public mood," commented
Aharon Adibekian, director of the Sociometer polling center.
Interviews with Yerevan residents often confirm that analysis.
Thirty-seven-year-old linguist Vardan Hakobian believes Armenians who
spend money in Turkey to be "traitors" who deny Ottoman Turkey's 1915
slaughter of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians.
Seventy-year-old pensioner Matevos Mkrtumian expressed similar
bewilderment about Armenians who "go to develop the tourism of a
country which is their enemy."
"Armenians have never seen anything good from the Turks. How can we
believe them now?" he asked.
One computer programmer, however, who asked not to be named, believes
that summer vacations should not be mixed with politics.
"My great-grandparents also fled from Western Armenia [term often used
for areas of Eastern Turkey traditionally inhabited by ethnic Armenians
- ed], but I don't want to mix things up," said the programmer. "My
vacation in Antalya was wonderful, though I must confess that very
often I tried to forget I was in Turkey."
Editor's note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based
in Yerevan.
From: A. Papazian
by Marianna Grigoryan
EurasiaNet
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61905
Sept 10 2010
NY
As Armenia's summer vacation season winds down, one country, Turkey,
will be missing from many of the usual travel tales. With Armenia's
attempts to reconcile with Turkey now at a standstill, Armenian
tourists this summer largely bucked the trend of recent years and
gave Turkey's sun-drenched beaches a miss.
Over the past few years, Yerevan's TezTour agency saw summer sales
of travel packages to Antalya, the popular Turkish Mediterranean Sea
resort town, increase annually by 30 to 40 percent. Not any more.
"Anything can influence people's decision to spend their vacation in
this or that place. In this situation, the Turkish coasts are really
vulnerable [to a decline in Armenian visitors]," said the firm's
Yerevan office director, Narine Davtian. "Business should have nothing
to do with politics, but, in this case, they're interconnected."
The posters advertising vacations in Turkey that used to flood
Yerevan each summer have largely disappeared. [For details, see
the EurasiaNet's archive.] In their place, other posters warn city
residents against vacationing in Turkey, urging them "not to arm the
Turkish army" by putting money into Turkey's economy.
Some travel agencies refused to sell tours to Antalya outright. First
Travel Director Karen Andreasian claims safety concerns for Armenian
tourists amidst the uptick in tensions between Yerevan and Ankara
drove his agency's decision. "I urge everybody to boycott Antalya,"
Andreasian said.
With Turkey now blackballed, tourists headed instead to the beaches
of Spain, Greece, Tunisia, and longtime seasonal favorite, Georgia.
Armenian holiday destinations are frequently seen as too expensive.
The government maintains that such boycotts are not part of a specific
policy, but, rather, the natural result of Turkey's alleged inability
to meet Armenia halfway on a reconciliation agreement. Turkey, in turn,
blames Armenia. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan this April called
a timeout for attempts to normalize ties with Turkey; Ankara broke
its diplomatic relations with Yerevan in 1993 to protest the war with
Turkish ally Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Politics is politics, but it influences the moods and preferences
of the people," said Mari Grigorian, deputy head of the Ministry of
Economy's department for tourism and regional economic development.
"We should use any chance to promote domestic tourism and make it
attractive for people."
Grigorian, who is no relation to this reporter, said that the
government has no official data about the number of Armenians who
travel to Turkey each year since the two countries do not have
diplomatic relations.
Aside from diplomatic wrangles, though, Armenians have also been
subjected to a full-force television campaign to steer clear of both
Turkish beach resorts and Turkish products.
In one TV ad, a Turkish-speaking man, dressed as an official, is
featured sitting under a portrait of the founder of the Republic of
Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the Turkish flag. Smiling, the man
via a voiceover thanks Armenians for boosting Turkey's economy and
strengthening its army by buying Turkish products. He ends by saying
"thank you" in Armenian -- "shnorhakalutiun."
At the same time, news coverage of Turkey on Armenian television,
particularly Public Television, has become notably chilly after
earlier attempts at emphasizing the chances for reconciliation.
Some analysts see nothing unusual in the coverage or in Armenians'
decision to bypass Antalya and other Turkish resorts this year.
"We must keep in mind what's going on. There has been an attempt to
normalize relations, and Turkey didn't support this move despite many
actions by the Armenian authorities," opined Armenian National Academy
of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies Director Ruben Safrastian,
a Turkish studies specialist. Disappointment with Turkey followed
and soured the public mood, Safrastian believes.
One sociologist agrees. "People had great expectations, and once
again they saw it was useless to expect anything from a country like
Turkey; all this would surely affect the public mood," commented
Aharon Adibekian, director of the Sociometer polling center.
Interviews with Yerevan residents often confirm that analysis.
Thirty-seven-year-old linguist Vardan Hakobian believes Armenians who
spend money in Turkey to be "traitors" who deny Ottoman Turkey's 1915
slaughter of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians.
Seventy-year-old pensioner Matevos Mkrtumian expressed similar
bewilderment about Armenians who "go to develop the tourism of a
country which is their enemy."
"Armenians have never seen anything good from the Turks. How can we
believe them now?" he asked.
One computer programmer, however, who asked not to be named, believes
that summer vacations should not be mixed with politics.
"My great-grandparents also fled from Western Armenia [term often used
for areas of Eastern Turkey traditionally inhabited by ethnic Armenians
- ed], but I don't want to mix things up," said the programmer. "My
vacation in Antalya was wonderful, though I must confess that very
often I tried to forget I was in Turkey."
Editor's note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based
in Yerevan.
From: A. Papazian