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IRO is Istanbul Tourist Guides' Guild founded under the Turkish Laws for the tourist guides living in Istanbul. Today, IRO is the largest tourist guide organisation in Turkey. With almost 3000 members it is a very strong professional organisation and it is celebrating the 50th anniversary. TUREB is the national federation, which was formed with a Protocol of Cooperation and Coordination among Professional Organizations of Turkish Tourist Guides. It consists of tourist guide guilds and associations with more than 7000 members from all over Turkey. The head office of TUREB is in the same place as IRO's. TUREB was founded by considering the problem of formation of shared opinion and representation caused by the fact that the professional organizations of Turkish tourist guides are gathered under different identities and associations, and accepting that tourist guides must gather under a uniform organization, tourist guiding must be recognized as a "profession", a Bill of Law concerning the profession and organization of tourist guides must be passed in order to solve the above mentioned problems, and coordination must be established among the existing professional organizations so that the ongoing administrative and professional endeavours concerning the profession and organization of tourist guides reach a successful conclusion, the shared problems of tourist guides are identified, and suggestions for solution are generated. In our Istanbul office we have 11 employees working for both IRO and TUREB on salary. Some are public relations experts, secretaries and some are web publishers, technicians etc. We have rented and restored the third and fourth floors of a beautiful 19th century building right in the center of Istanbul and it is only 5 minutes walk to the Taksim Square. The third floor is our office floor and conference-exhibition hall. We have decorated the 4th floor as a café-bar and restaurant for our member guides. It is actually a Tourist Guides' Club with a seating capacity of 60-70 people. Its name is ROL. This club house has been active since January 2005. We have become a member of the FEG and the WFTGA. By using our relations with other countries, we are planning to improve our regulations in Turkey. TUREB's Website: We are continuing to contribute to the world of tourism through a dynamic website, which is updated daily to publish announcements and developments concerning our profession as well as all kinds of news related to cultural assets and tourism. We have a mail group for discussion between our colleagues. It is a fast and widespread network of communication through which more than 1000 tourist guides discuss their opinions vigorously and share their experiences. It is a free-talk platform. TUREB has established another website www.turkishguides.org to provide easy access to tourist guides by travelers, travel agencies and tour operators. This is like an online catalogue. There are hundreds of tourist guides listed in this online catalogue. Each guide has to pay TUREB a fee of 20 US Dollars in order to be listed. This is a one-time fee. This income is not enough to sustain the website but TUREB takes care of the expenses. We have just launched another website called www.turizmhabercisi.com in Turkish. This is the best online tourism newspaper in Turkey. It is updated 5-6 times a day. A lot of tourism professionals in Turkey start their days by reading our online paper as they made our site their homepages. We look at events from tourist guides' perspective in this website and publish articles of tourist guides. Thus, tourism professionals who are not tourist guides appreciate the works of guides. TUREB has prepared a comprehensive Tourist Guides' Catalogue as a reliable database and reference source on tourist guides. This is a hard copy catalogue. The first catalogue covered more than 450 tourist guides but now the second one has become larger and covers more than 800 guides who showed interest in getting listed in the catalogue. Ongoing Training: By law, each tourist guide has to get a visa (re-register) for his guiding license each year. To get this visa, every tourist guide has to take minimum three seminars each year. These seminars are offered by TUREB. Thousands of tourist guides are receiving training on issues determined by surveys among tourist guides each year. The seminars cover a wide variety of subjects ranging from the Hittite History to the Art of Effective Speaking and Body Language, Ottoman Architecture, and Turkey-European Union Relationships. We pick the best lecturers in their fields. Certificate Programs: According to the changing demands of the tourism industry, TUREB also organizes specialty seminars for the tourist guides such as the training programs on The Gallipolis Campaign (ANZACS), Biblical Tours in Anatolia, Neolithic Settlements, The Jewish Heritage Tours, Ecotourism, In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, etc. In addition to seminars and certificate programs, many conferences and panel discussions, participated by a variety of speakers from foreign experts to university lecturers, are organized in order to provide the tourist guides with diverse and comprehensive information. Especially in winter months, we have at least one activity in almost everyday. We have conducted many training and field trips within and outside Turkey such as educational training tours to Greece, Syria, Kastamonu, Excavations at Troy, Tokat, Mardin, etc. We pay importance to entertainment in order to enhance 'sharing' among us. We frequently come together for various reasons such as celebrations, cocktails, dinners and balls. The World Tourist Guides' Day is celebrated by the member organizations of TUREB on 21 February each year through various activities like panels, conferences, voluntary tour guiding, dinners, etc. For instance in the last party we had in Istanbul, the number of guides and guests who joined the party was more than 600. We admire and pay our respect to senior tourist guides. We are organizing special gatherings in order to hear and benefit from their experiences. We are respectful for the past. The tourist guides are actively participating in the celebrations of Tourism Week held between 15 and 22 April each year in order to promote tourism consciousness in the society. We support and participate in the Tourism Fairs by our activities and exhibition stands. For instance two years ago with the sponsorship of the Mercedes Company, we made a model of a Mercedes coach in our exhibition stand and it was visited by thousands of visitors. It was the first time that TUREB participated in an exhibition. TUREB Trophies/Awards: A few years ago, we started with TUREB Awards. We carry out some polls on the Internet among tourist guides, and then we altogether decide on areas of awards and then nominate various people and organizations. On the 21st of February, with the participation of our ministers, mayors, governors, we hold one full day activity for almost hundreds of tourist guides. Conferences, exhibitions, performances and an award ceremony take place all day long. The next day we show up in the media. As TUREB, we are participating in all kinds of platforms, which will improve the tourism policies. We are one of the active actors in the tourism policies. Within the context of Protection of Environment and Nature, we have started TUREB Forests in Ankara and Antalya. Thousands of pine trees have been planted. We can show these forests to our travelers from our coaches as their locations were chosen by the highways. TUREB has started the first discussions concerning consumer rights in Turkish tourism, and organized conferences and panels inviting international experts to Turkey. For instance, we invited Mr John Downes from Scotland to give a lecture on consumer rights in Turkey and he did deliver his lecture very successfully. The painting and photo exhibitions of tourist guides are held in TUREB-Yasemin Cebenoyan Meeting and Exhibition Hall for public entry. First Crossroads, now Heritage: Who could possibly know Turkey better than tourist guides? The Heritage magazine issued by TUREB, promotes Anatolia through tourist guides' eyes. Published quarterly in English and Turkish with a circulation of 30.000, our magazine is appreciated by a wide scale of readers, both local and foreign. The "Rehber Dunyasi (Tourist Guide's World)" published quarterly with the aim of providing a platform of communication among the tourist guides and introducing them to the society is the sole publication in its kind whereby experiences are shared, professional issues, interviews and original researches are printed, and thus other representatives of the tourism sector as well as the tourist guides are addressed. "Travel Tips by Tourist Guides" prepared and published by TUREB is a comprehensive booklet concerning dos and don'ts for travelers during their travels. TUREB's Media Coverage: We frequently appear on the press with our activities and the press bulletins prepared by our "Press and Public Relations" Department in order to inform the public opinion and our colleagues. We are cooperating with other nongovernmental organizations on the grounds of shared goals. WWF is one of them for instance. We partner in some projects. We are about to sign a protocol with WWF on training tourist guides as observers of sustainable tourism. This will be volunteer work for guides and they will report anything unsustainable in tourism to a data center. TUREV is the Tourist Guides' Foundation founded by 108 professional tourist guides. It has been established in order to prepare social, cultural and economical activities for Turkish tourist guides, to enhance professional solidarity, and to work towards increasing the importance and respectability of this sector in the Turkish economy, and putting its tourism potential into practice. Although it was founded by 108 trustees, its constitution was prepared in a way that it will cover all of the tourist guides in Turkey. In the last few years our foundation applied for some international funds for our "Children and Museums" project. In this project, tourist guides, who have had training in pedagogy, drama and first aid, are taking elementary school children to museums and tourist sites free of charge so that children can be aware of the historical richness of the lands they live on. Our application was accepted and we got 45 thousand US Dollars for this project and we dealt with 4800 children. This international organisation funding our project is very happy with the results and they suggest that our project get more and more extensive throughout Turkey in the following years. Serif Yenen |
