Turkish TV series have great influence on the number of visitors coming to Turkey.
A special report revealed by Research Gate, Turkey’s popularity among people across the world is increasing as Turkish TV series become more popular.
According to the report; Turkish series being shown on television in Arab countries and the Balkans, and their increased popularity have been a fact which can be described as an element of soft power and cultural export to some extent.
While Turkey collects export revenues from these TV series; on the other hand, it makes its own promotion at no cost and spreads its life style and cultural values to the surrounding region. The export of Turkish soap operas in the whole region has started as a random and unintended business, and TV series which were shot and whose expenses were already covered have been sold additionally to some more customers.
This is considered as a good and so far well-managed opportunity for Turkey. There has been an increasing flow of tourists from Arab and Balkan countries towards Turkey as a result of successful promotion done by these Turkish series. This study extends the notion of film-tourism (or film induced tourism) to the series-induced tourism and analyzes the impact of Turkish series on the decision of coming to Turkey via a survey done among 88 tourists in Istanbul, Trabzon and Bursa. It concludes that Turkish TV series do have a positive impact on the decisions of the people with whom we conducted the survey. To further tourism, Turkey needs to improve itself in foreign language education, and enhance the quality of the personnel in the tourism sector.
