Mayor, firm and NGO team up for Kadıköy

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

A nongovernmental organization active in tourism, a liquor brand and a district municipality have joined forces to improve service and raise tourism revenue in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district on the Asian side.

The Tourism Research Association (Turad) has started a project with the support of Yeni Rakı and Kadıköy Municipality to turn Kadıköy’s historical marketplace into a tourist attraction and increase tourism revenue in the area.

“Nearly 8 million tourists come to Istanbul every year; 6 million to the European side and the remaining 2 million to the Asian side. Some 1.3 million of the 2 million come due to establishment of Sabiha Gökçen Airport, where tourists [coming to Istanbul] land,” said Bahattin Yücel, a former tourism minister and the current head of Turad, at a press meeting in Kadıköy introducing the project.

Food and beverage businesses in the marketplace received service improvement education and a book on the historical marketplace has been published in Turkish and English as part of the project.

Kitchen based capacity

“Restaurants will provide seating based on their kitchen capacity,” Selami Öztürk, the mayor Kadıköy said, adding that this will ensure better service quality.

Turad has executed a similar project in the Samatya district of Istanbul on the European side. “As a result of the Samatya project, the turnover of the businesses there rose by an average of 350 percent,” Yücel said.

Yücel said Turad conducted research to find out the visitor profile of the historic Kadıköy marketplace. Turad cooperated with TÜV-Rheinland and Yeni Rakı to determine service quality of the food and beverage businesses in the marketplace.