ANKARA - ''Antalya, for the first time, ranked the first among the vacation destinations which German tourists preferred most in 2004,'' said Turkish Culture & Tourism Ministry Promotion General Director Selami Karaibrahimgil.
Karaibrahimgil told A.A that they used the portrait of Azra Akin, a Turkish girl and World Beauty Contest winner, in billboards and her smiling face was chosen the most preferred advertisement poster in Germany.
Noting, ''the number of tourists who visited Turkey between January and July 2004 increased by 37.06 percent when compared with the same season of 2003'', Karaibrahimgil said, ''the number of tourists who came from OECD countries to Turkey also rose by 36.5 percent and reached to 5,728,308 in the first seven months of 2004.''
Karaibrahimgil said, ''three large promotion campaigns which were started in the beginning of 2004 helped to realize this increase. Campaigns with World Beauty Azra Akin drew very much attention.'' He also added, ''spots with Azra Akin were broadcast in world televisions in the first half of 2004 with the slogan 'our smiling face is expecting you...Turkey'. Billboards with Azra Akin were also on display in Germany.''
Stressing that Eurovision Song Contest which was organized in Istanbul, was also very helpful as regards the promotion of Turkey, Karaibrahimgil said that ''Culture Ministry signed an agreement with state-run TRT channel which broadcast Eurovision, thus touristic spots of Turkey were broadcast in 36 different countries during the song contest''.
Karaibrahimgil said, ''we have pursued a comprehensive promotion with open-air campaigns including Trojan horse and advertisements which were published in newspapers and magazines''.
He added that ''next year they would focus on developing countries such as Japan, Iran, Syria and Eastern European countries, to attract tourists to Turkey''.
(GC-ULG) 13.08.2004