Managing how visitors see Turkey

Of course, there are those young guys who give the foreign girls a bit too much unwanted attention, and the constant cries of “Alo Madame” as you go past the tourist shops...

I recently came across a fascinating quote from Mary Lee Settle, “When you make a world for tourists you make a lie, a patchwork from all the coats you have shed.”

What is the image of Turkey that is so often created for tourists?

The difficulty we have is that most tourists do not want to take back home a scale model of a BMW car as a gift for their family, even if it is the mode of transport preferred by their tour guide. Nor, to be more authentically Turkish, would they buy a stuffed felt truck. What they want to purchase as a souvenir is a toy camel. Forget the fact that it is maybe many centuries since camels crossed Turkey: This is what is available in shop after shop in a seaside resort.

Similarly, a postcard of the skyscrapers at Maslak or Levent will not be attractive to send to your colleagues slaving away back at the office as it is not “different” from the building they are in. However, a postcard of a man on a donkey is likely to wing its way back to London, Paris or New York with the message “I think I’ve found a way to cut our company car budget!” or some similar quip written on it. A piece of the coat that Turkey has shed is woven into the patchwork for the tourists.

Turkish youths sport baseball caps from their favorite soccer team. But what do we offer the tourists to take home as a souvenir? The fez. And not a beautifully crafted, crimson felt masterpiece, but nine times out of 10 a fez made of gaudy mock-arabesque stripy material stuck on to a cardboard base. This item of headgear that is illegal for a Turk to wear is taken home as an item of fancy dress. Not a coat, but this time a hat that Turkey has shed, is woven into the patchwork for tourists.

I could list countless more examples. Those slippers with the curled up toes. An Aladdin or Princess Yasemin costume for children ... or a belly-dancer’s scanty get-up. Dolls of mustachioed men with baggy pants.

All of these go together to create an arabesque illusion: a Western romanticized version of the Arabian Nights: a patchwork woven from all the coats Turkey has shed.

If I were in the UK, having never been to Turkey, and received a gift of a stuffed camel, the image of Turkey as the romantic East as portrayed in films would be reinforced in my mind. “Did you see women wearing veils?” I might ask my friends on their return.

Nearly every single first-time visitor I host says, “I didn’t expect it to be so green” (translation: it’s not the sandy desert I expected) or “there are so many trees” (translation: I thought I might see a few palm trees around an oasis).

I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. “After all, it’s all just a bit of fun,” I hear you say. But often the sad thing is that these items are being taken abroad as an item of parody. An old-fashioned camel to laugh at when back at the office, a funny hat to wear when down the bar with the lads, an outrageous costume for a fancy-dress party.

Last week I took some visitors to see the Miniaturk park. We admired the magnificent scale models of the mosques, palaces and natural landscapes of Turkey. I had remembered there were also models of Atatürk Airport and the Bosporus Bridge, but I did not recall the modern architecture of the Istanbul Municipality Headquarters, or the IT centre of a major bank being there. At first it struck me oddly: why put these here as examples of interesting buildings? They are just “normal” parts of the Istanbul landscape.

And then it dawned on me ... to just show the old would be to present a world for tourists that is a lie, made up of a patchwork of only the shed coats.

The designers of Miniaturk have got the message that to be a tourism ambassador they have to show ALL of Turkey. Not just the quirky, full-of-Eastern-promise bits.

Next time you are buying a souvenir to show back home, how about a Starbucks Türkiye mug?