Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar to launch global promotional campaign amid Turkey’s tourist slump

“The Grand Bazaar has been the city’s leading commercial center as well as now a prominent tourism center with around 90 million people passing through the bazaar annually, over 4 million of whom are tourists,” said board chair Ahmet Kökler. 

“As the Grand Bazaar management, we have kept working to develop commercial activities here, raise our competitiveness level and promote our cultural and brand awareness. The Grand Bazaar is already a global brand. We aim to raise its brand awareness further and make our bazaar an exemplary cultural, commercial, historic and tourism center,” he added. 

The move comes as Turkey’s tourism industry has seen sharp drops this year amid political instability and a series of terror attacks. 

Kökler noted the board would promote the existing, yet rare, professions found in the Grand Bazaar through social media and the Internet. 

Saying that a corporate identity, logo and internal method guide had already been prepared, Kökler noted that any technical opportunities will be used to make their visitors more comfortable and the bazaar more secure. 

“Our tourism income has decreased over this year compared to previous years. We are determined to boost this figure. We aim to attract more tourists to our bazaar and to double the business volume through our promotional campaign,” said Kökler. 
He also noted there was no safety or security problem within the bazaar.