With international inbound to Turkey looking up once again, Turkey will be rigorously reactivating its trade engagements in emerging markets like China and India. Starting from September, Turkish Tourism will embark on a series of promotional campaigns and destination marketing activities in Indian market. This is in sync with the 100-day Action Plan unveiled by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier this month aimed at transforming Turkey economically. In the tourism sector, the Action Plan has set a target of 40 million international inbound by end of this year.

Foreign tourist arrivals in the first six months of 2018 increased by 30% compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching around 16 million, as per official statistics. Tourism revenue in the first six months of this year rose from USD 8.7 billion to USD 11.4 billion.

The 100-day Action Plan underscores the importance of emerging markets like India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., said H Deniz Ersoz, Culture & Tourism Counsellor, Embassy of Republic of Turkey in India. The tourism department has been asked to undertake dedicated activities in these markets to increase the inbound from these emerging markets, he added. He said that these markets are important for Turkish Tourism for “diversification of products” as unlike European visitors who are more “sun and sand” oriented, visitors from these markets are keen on exploring the life and culture of the country.

Talking about plans for the India market, Ersoz said that Turkish Tourism hasn’t done much in the market since last couple of years other than attending few important trade exhibitions. However, starting from September, Turkish Tourism will start joint promotional campaigns with leading tour companies in the country. This will include some dedicated special campaigns to attract the weddings market, he said. Turkish Tourism is also in the process of finalising two roadshows series in October and November this year covering major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and few Tier-II cities. The tourism agency will also conduct three familiarisation tours in 2018, Ersoz said. While one will be dedicated to wedding planners, other two will be for corporates and media. MICE, he said, is a key segment and there has already been big group movements to Turkey from India.

India inbound to Turkey grew 100% between January and June this year compared to the corresponding period last year. “We hope this year will be best year as far as visitor numbers are concerned from India. We are hoping to receive two lakh Indian visitors this year,” Ersoz said. The highest Indian numbers to Turkey was in 2015 with 1.32 lakh visitors. “Around 15 big Indian weddings are confirmed in 2018,” he informed.

“Our focus is to showcase Turkey beyond Istanbul. The messaging would be to look beyond Istanbul.” Ersoz said that 90% of the hotels on the Mediterranean coast work on all-inclusive packages. This is yet not known in India market. Therefore, efforts would be to make this messaging spread across the trade in India.

Commenting on the Turkey-India bilateral on tourism, he said that effort is on to revive the Joint Working Group mechanism on tourism between the two countries. He said that the last meeting of the group was held in 2006. “I had meetings with Ministry of Tourism officials in India on reviving the mechanism to explore scope of mutual cooperation in tourism. We are exploring a (Joint Working Group) JWG meeting in Istanbul sometime in October- November this year,” he added.

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Turkey is a beautiful holiday destination and earlier this year, MakeMyTrip picked Turkey as the hottest summer destination for the year. To present the destination’s unique experiences, MakeMyTrip created a unique online game that showcases the destinations through beautiful panoramas and aerial shots under the name ‘Discover Turkey’ earlier this year. The game was available through a micro-site on www.discoverturkey.in.

The game features five destinations from Turkey with a total of 15 attractions spread through 5 different levels that users have to complete. With each attraction, you will find a virtual experience. Some of them offer 360 degree views while others include virtual tours using videos. Each virtual experience is coupled with a challenge, usually in form of a simple question. The contest has been long over now but the game is still available for users to play.

Campaign strategy

The game has been primarily targeted at social media savvy millennial travellers. To play the game, you have to login using your Facebook or twitter account and share progress on social media. The questions are simple and can be easily answered with the help of the visual tour. Like we said, the objective of this campaign was to promote Turkey as a summer holiday destination and spark some inspiration among the users. MakeMyTrip was spreading the message about Discover Turkey through its social media accounts and getting the users to share the updates on their social accounts further helped in inviting users on the platform.

Promotion strategy

Apart from heavy promotions on social media, MakeMyTrip also joined hands with actress Yami Gautam for offline promotion. They used print advertising and radio ads along with digital ads to spread the word about the campaign and their association with actress. The banners on the MakeMyTrip website also helped spread awareness about the campaign. For the promotions, their marketing spends were primarily targeted towards Tier 1 cities. The contest was open for Indian residents only but was available for people from other countries as a game.

Not only did they promote the campaign using various medium but also set up various on-ground activities at popular shopping malls. This helped them reach people who use social media but aren’t very active.

Our take

We must say the campaign was executed very well by the team at KRDS, the agency behind this campaign. Their team flew to Turkey to get the content for the campaigns, shoot aerial videos, capture 360 degree panoramas and actually understand the whole idea behind Discover Turkey. The website looks quite good and, with interactive maps and impressive interface, enhances the image of MakeMyTrip as an innovative brand in the digital space. The campaign managed to attract over 19,000 visitors with over 1,000 visitors completing all 15 levels.

MakeMyTrip has undergone some major changes this year including a new branding message. Apart from the new branding message ‘Dil toh roaming hai’, they have added new features like ‘Uncancel’, hosted campaigns with popular travel bloggers and invested in promising travel startups. They have also acquired MyGola, a last minute booking service. Sources suggest that a tie-up with Flipkart is also in the pipeline to further strengthen MakeMyTrip’s presence in the online booking space.

This campaign is a classic demonstration of how neat execution and a different approach can do wonders to your campaign. Have you seen Discover Turkey yet? Check out their website and let us know whether it inspires you to travel to Turkey.

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