On Tuesday, Mar. 3rd, we met with the vice mayor of Zeytinburnu District in Istanbul. This district has many historical sites and mosques. They also built a cultural park in honor of a historical figure. These actions certainly attract both domestic and international tourists. However, when being asked if government has developed any projects targeting tourism, the vice mayor seemed like to show that tourism is not important enough to shape government policy but will somehow be attracted anyway. He raised an example of setting up a local festival that originally was proposed just to serve local people’s interests. This festival ended up attracting a lot of domestic tourists to come, too. He was not aware of the cultural park or whatsoever.
On Friday, Mar. 6th, we met with the mayor of Izmir. He showed completely different attitude about questions regarding tourism. He said the government paid attention into different urban planning sessions to both benefit citizens and make Izmir a better tourist destination. It is clear that Izmir is striving to make itself more internationally symbolic, and tourism certainly plays a role in helping it achieve this goal.