AP Features, April 16th, 2007
Visits by Americans to Turkey have finally returned to pre-2001 levels, with 532,000 U.S. visitor arrivals in 2006, according to statistics from the Turkish government.
In the year 2000, some 515,000 Americans visited Turkey, but that number dropped following the Sept. 11th attacks, with only 222,000 U.S. visitors in 2003. The numbers have been rebounding since then, although tourism officials say most first-time visits by Americans to Turkey nowadays are made via cruise ship.
Peter Frank, editor of Concierge.com, is predicting that travel to Turkey by Americans will continue to grow. "Turkey is going to be enormous this year," he said in an interview.
Istanbul even made it onto Concierge.com's "It" list of trendy destinations for 2007. "I was amazed at the sophistication of the restaurants and the nightclubs," Frank said. "Istanbul is becoming Europe's nightlife capital, with amazing clubs overlooking the Bosphorus and all these great little restaurants on rooftops. The food was really, really good." He mentioned Changa, and its offshoot, Muzedechanga, located at the Sakip Sabanci Museum, as examples of stylish contemporary restaurants with fusion cuisine.
Frank also cited Bodrum on the Turkish coast, where a number of upscale hotels have recently opened, as "appealing to that young, jetsetty crowd - it's the St. Tropez people."
Must-sees in Istanbul for the first-time visitor include, in addition to the legendary Grand Bazaar, the 17th century Blue Mosque, so called because it is decorated inside with 20,000 blue tiles; and the Hagia Sophia, a museum that was once the largest church in the world and later a mosque. Other popular destinations around Turkey include Antalya, a Mediterranean resort city; the marble temples, mosaics and other ancient ruins of Ephesus; and Cappadocia, where many visitors take balloon rides above volcanic cones called "fairy chimneys." These rock formations housed subterranean cities that were carved into the soft stone more than 1,000 years ago. Today, visitors can stay at the Anatolian Houses, a hotel built inside the caves that opened last September - http://www.anatolianhouses.com.
For more information about planning a trip to Turkey, visit http://www.tourismturkey.org.
