Careful with the ‘risk perception’ in investments!
Elite Otel first started in 2003 with the Elite World Prestige in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district. It today has six hotels along with one in the eastern province of Van.
After its growth in Turkey, the group will now make investments abroad in order to spread risk because of the difficulties the tourism industry has been facing for some time, according to Emel Elik Bezaroğlu, a member of its board.
Although there is some liveliness in tourism after the support of the Russians and the Gulf countries, the situation is not that good. Especially in the congress tourism, the agenda of 2018-2019 is completely empty.
I had started to hear from tourism experts that they will invest abroad. Cutting down the domestic investments and aiming at foreign countries will create a loss with regard to development and employment in the coming periods. Therefore, it is useful to improve the risk perception as soon as possible.
Elite Otel is one of the rare groups to invest in tourism amid all the distress in the recent years. Recently, the group opened Elite World Europe with a $120 million investment on the Güneşli Basın Ekspres road in Istanbul. And they are getting ready to open another one on the Asian side of the city.
“I have been a tourism expert for the past 15 years. I do not remember another period as bad as this one,” said Emel Elik Bezaroğlu, who is also the group’s sales and marketing executive.
“The crisis started back in mid-2013, during the Gezi Park protests. After 2015, the sector almost collapsed. But we never said let’s quit. Of course, this atmosphere slowed down our speed. We are more hopeful of the 2017-18 season. We started receiving proposals from Europe, which is pleasing. American cruise companies were thinking of putting Turkey again on their routes, but that is difficult from now on,” said Bezaroğlu.
The group is ending its domestic investments, according to Besaroğlu, who said the first overseas investment will be made in St. Petersburg. “We have to look abroad; this is a must for risk aversion,” she said.
Second track diplomacy
Sedat Aloğlu is a leading businessman and a former MP who has gone through a variety of crisis periods since 1980 in Turkey.
He believes building a new “National Team” formed of academics, businesspeople and media representatives would be effective in order to overcome the current problems Turkey is facing in its foreign relations.
He says they could set a new strategy, visit various countries and institutions. “If the fourth power in developed democracies is media, then the fifth power is non-governmental organizations. Turkey needs to unite. We have always worked, and must continue, to better the reputation of Turkey. We do not have the right or the luxury to leave this problem solely on the shoulders of politicians. We must share the burdens,” he said.
The proposal of Aloğlu is very appropriate and it must be considered. The Turkish Business and Industry Association (TÜSİAD) has developed strategies in order to ease relations with Germany, they take steps accordingly, but such measures need to be put into action faster.
Being a “beautiful and precious but a lonely country” is of no benefit to anyone!