On Thursday, Mar. 5th, I met with managers of several branches that belong to international hotel chains.
The first one is Mercure hotel, the 5th branch opened in Istanbul by the international hotel chain Mercure. This new one was opened 10 months ago in May 2014. The customer manager of this hotel told me that the company valued great future potential of Istanbul. “Istanbul attracts many tourists in middle east and also in Europe. It has many historical sites, shopping malls that have great prices. Many international conferences and exhibition are held here. Also, transportation system is pretty much developed so visitors can easily go around.” They’ve witnessed constant growth of popularity during the past 8 months and are optimistic about the market in the next few years.
Next, I visited Intercontinental and Grand Hyatt. Both of them are closer to the Gezi Park and have longer history of being in Istanbul. They expressed similar opinions about the future in Istanbul. When asked about their loss during Gezi Park protest, manager at Intercontinental gave out specific numbers immediately. “18% decrease,” He said, “It was really severe in influencing our profits so every one remembered this number.”