Antalya now just a click away

The application was created for the tourism capital of Turkey, Antalya, and is set to function as a guidebook for foreigners and Turkish visitors coming to visit the sunny city.

The company Antalya Ulaşım A.Ş., which belongs to the Antalya Metropolitan Municipality, in coordination with a firm named Abacus Informatics created the application and named it “My Antalya.” The project began as a way to make life easier for foreign and Turkish tourists visiting Antalya. It can be used free on iPads, iPhones and android phones. The firm is currently working to get the program up and running for telephones with other operating systems. The “My Antalya” application is available in Turkish, English, German and Russian and provides information on the closest restaurants, movie theaters, hotels and banks as well as transportation routes, city guidebooks and historical and touristic places.

The presentation of the project took place at the Antalya Cultural Center in a press conference organized by Antalya Metropolitan Municipal Mayor Mustafa Akaydın. Mayor Akaydın noted that the technological capabilities of applications have increased in the last few years such that everyone can gain access to stores of information about Antalya with only a touch of a button.

Excluding those who live year-round in Antalya, approximately 11 million tourists, including 3 million Turkish nationals, are expected to visit the city. Akaydın’s goal is to have every tourists use this new application. He explained that with this application citizens of Antalya could send written and photo suggestions to the municipality in an instant.

Akaydın accepted the application after eight months of fine-tuning and said: “Our project is the first of its kind in Turkey, and we are very pleased. For this year we expect that between 6 and 8 million people will use this application.”

Botanical tours under way in ancient town

In addition to its cultural, historical and archaeological tourism, Antalya is also home to a botanical oasis, through its ancient town of Side.

Local and foreign tourists alike have the opportunity to be taken on a guided botanical tour of Side where they can gain a great deal of knowledge concerning the flora and fauna of the area.

Aziz Günyeli, owner of the Unser Tour Tourism Travel Agency, notes that it is mostly Germans and tourists from Northern European countries that are interested in the tours.

Günyeli went on to note that it is mostly people who want to be alone with nature that take this tour and that many local tourists are interested in these tours as well. The tours include the towns of Akseki and İbradı, places where Günyeli notes over 10,000 European tourists visited last year.

It is hoped that this year the number of visitors will rise to 12,000, and Günyeli explains that photography enthusiasts take the lead in these botanical and ecological tours.