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<\/p>\nAFP \u2013 The air-clearing apologies were both made and accepted.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now, Turkey\u2019s tourism industry is holding its breath and hoping that Israel\u2019s apology for a deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla will translate into a new love affair that will bring Israeli holidaymakers back to its beach resorts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the apology, I think we\u2019ll reach 500,000 (Israeli) tourists this year,\u201d said Timur Bayindir, the president of the Association of Hotel Owners in Turkey (TUROB), convinced that any grudges between the two allies were erased thanks to last week\u2019s diplomatic breakthrough.<\/p>\n
And he is not the only one who is optimistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cooperation between the two countries will resume as before,\u201d Basaran Ulusoy, the president of the Association of Travel Agencies in Turkey (TURSAB), told mainstream daily Sabah.<\/p>\n
Prior to the spat, Turkey-Israel relations were warm, and vacationers from the Jewish state were a common sight along the Turkish Mediterranean coastline. Among the 558,000 tourists that visited Turkey in 2008, one out of every 13 was Israeli, making it their top holiday destination.<\/p>\n
But relations soured in 2009, when Israel unleashed its devastating 22-day Operation Cast Lead on Gaza.<\/p>\n
Turkey was infuriated.<\/p>\n
It accused Israel of using disproportionate force in the conflict that cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians \u2014 half of them civilians \u2014 and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.<\/p>\n
The criticism did not go down well in Israel, where trade unions called for a boycott of Turkey. The number of Israeli tourists in Turkey fell to 312,000 that year.<\/p>\n
A year later, relations between the two states hit rock bottom. Israeli commandos staged a botched pre-dawn raid on the six-ship flotilla to Gaza headed by Turkey\u2019s Mavi Marmara, in which nine Turkish nationals are killed.<\/p>\n
In response, Ankara expelled Israel\u2019s ambassador to Turkey and suspended their military cooperation. And angry Turkish mobs took to the streets and burned Israeli flags.<\/p>\n
That was when Israeli holidaymakers really began to turn their backs on Turkey.<\/p>\n
In 2010, the number of Israeli tourists plummeted to 110,000, in 2011 to 79,000, and last year it only slightly rebounded to 84,000.<\/p>\n
The March 22 apology made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan \u2014 and brokered by US President Barack Obama \u2014 may reverse the trend.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the apologies, we pushed very hard (for) Greece and Bulgaria, but since last week we try to do our best to push Turkish products,\u201d Eyal Kashdan said, the chief executive of Flying Carpet Travel, one of the market leaders in promoting Israeli tourism in Turkey.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, clients prefer the (Turkish) products, the hotels of Turkey\u2026 because of the luxury of the hotels and the all-inclusive system, and they feel that the Turkish cuisine is similar to the Israeli cuisine,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
Still, he does not go as far as to say the Turks can now expect a boom in Israeli tourism. At least not yet. \u201cI think the clients need more time to feel better with the (Turkish) hospitality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His reservations are echoed by Daniel Zimet, president of the Zimet Marketing Communications agency which promotes Turkey in Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsraelis shall be ensured 100 percent that there is nothing to worry about when going to Turkey,\u201d he said, adding that Erdogan is still walking a fine line in regards to doubts cast on whether the Israeli commanders of the flotilla raid still risk judicial proceedings in Turkey.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still a way to go before things will be totally clarified between the two nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
via Turks hope Israeli apology for flotilla raid sparks tourism boom | The Raw Story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AFP \u2013 The air-clearing apologies were both made and accepted. Now, Turkey\u2019s tourism industry is holding its breath and hoping that Israel\u2019s apology for a deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla will translate into a new love affair that will bring Israeli holidaymakers back to its beach resorts. \u201cAfter the apology, I think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":68979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,1094],"tags":[5645,3044],"class_list":["post-68978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-tourism","tag-jewish-tourists","tag-mavi-marmara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}