Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy: 'We will accomplish 60 years of excavation work in 4 years'

Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy stated, "We will accomplish in 4 years what has been done in archaeology over the last 60 years. Our excavation directors are now Turkish as well. We have assigned a Turkish coordinator excavation director to each of the foreign excavation directors."

Don't leave your news choices to an algorithm - decide for yourself what you read. Add 12punto to your preferred sources!

Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy: 'We will accomplish 60 years of excavation work in 4 years'

Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy met with media representatives in Şanlıurfa, where he arrived to attend the Culture Road Festival.

Ersoy noted that they aim to increase the number of cities hosting the festival to 35 by 2028.

Explaining that they will extend archaeological excavations to 12 months, Ersoy expressed their goal to complete the work of the last 60 years within 4 years.

163 YEARS LATER, EXCAVATION DIRECTORS ARE NOW TURKISH

Reporting that they have not terminated the positions of foreign excavation directors but have assigned a Turkish coordinator excavation director to each of them, Ersoy remarked, "163 years later, everything has been nationalized. 163 years later, all excavation sites in our country have become sites excavated under the supervision of Turkish excavation directors. We did not exclude foreigners. We said, 'Bring your project. You are supposed to work in a 500-square-meter area, but you are occupying 50 decares. My excavation director will know about this.'"

Stating that they aim to extend the season in Turkish tourism to 12 months and that this will not be achieved solely with sun, sand, and sea, Minister Ersoy spoke as follows:

"There are destinations indexed to a specific product. The Asian destination tourist does not come for sea, sand, and sun. They use umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun. We are targeting the Asian tourist. It is among our most important goals... We are targeting the qualified Western tourist. We are promoting both city and cultural tourism together. It is also important in terms of extending the season to 12 months. It is also important in terms of spreading tourism to all 81 provinces. By bringing the East and Southeast to the forefront with their cultural and archaeological values, you ensure the flow of tourists there as well. Otherwise, you remain limited to the coast."

'WE ARE TARGETING 80 MILLION TOURISTS'

"We are targeting around 80 million tourists by 2028. This cannot be achieved with just sea, sand, and sun. Nor can it be achieved by concentrating on the same locations for short periods. If you want to increase quality, it brings personnel employment and efficiency to the agenda. You need to provide 12 months of work. You need to come up with new products during what we call the off-season or dead season.

Cultural and artistic activities and archaeology are at the forefront of these. When you bring these together, you both extend the season to 12 months, fulfill the first condition of employing the qualified personnel necessary for qualified tourists, and spread tourism to our cities that stand out with their archaeological and cultural plans and other products, such as the cities in the East and Southeast of Anatolia.

"When I took office, we were in 7th place in the world; we are currently in 4th place. Now our goal is to enter the top 3. When you talk about entering the top 3, the number increases by 20 million. It is such an ambitious number. We have important competitors like China, the USA, Spain, and France. We recently surpassed Italy and reached 4th place. We aim to enter the top 3 by attracting around 80 million visitors in 2028."

News Source: AA