This article was commissioned by Odissey from the Culture and Information Office of the Embassy of Türkiye in Italy: official materials and images made available to offer the Italian travel trade a readable map of the destination. Inspiration, yes, but paired with facts and concrete opportunities.
Türkiye, the endless conversation between East and West
If there is a country capable of letting memory and future converse without interruption, that country is Türkiye. As soon as you land, you feel the salt of the Aegean and the light of the Mediterranean, the density of spices in the bazaars, the shimmer of marble along ancient Roman streets, the breath of minarets at sunset. It is an invitation to slow down and widen your gaze: here geography is an emotional discipline. Two continents shaking hands, a history made present, a culture that hosts and transforms. Istanbul awaits you like a living bridge; Cappadocia like a concrete fairy tale; the Aegean and the Turkish Riviera like summers without a deadline; the UNESCO sites like lessons in an open-air classroom. But what surprises, both for those who work in the trade and for those who travel, is the intelligence with which Türkiye translates its heritage into contemporary, sustainable experiences: museums opening at night, changing the language of history; itineraries that turn air layovers into city tasters; a gastronomy stepping onto the international stage without abandoning its roots; a direction made of clear plans and objectives.
Night becomes part of a country’s storytelling
There is a precise choice in how Türkiye chooses to narrate itself: changing history’s timetable. Opening museums and sites at night is not merely extending hours; it is reversing perspective. Ephesus or Hierapolis under the stars, Galata Tower when the lights of Beyoğlu redraw the city, Bodrum with “underwater” archaeology in conversation with the moon. Last year the Night Museums project exceeded 395,000 visitors: not just demand, but the measure of an offering that lets contemplation and sociability, knowledge and entertainment, live together late into the evening.
When night is not an exception, Türkiye keeps vibrating after sunset. In Istanbul the Archaeology Museums and Galata Tower; in Izmir the Factory of Culture and Arts; in Bodrum the Museum of Underwater Archaeology: openings that change the grammar of travel and feed city centers. In Antalya, the ancient theater of Aspendos hosts music, opera and ballet, while the sites of Aspendos, Patara and Side remain accessible until 10 p.m. In Kaş, night diving becomes a rite; in Belek, golf under the stars pushes the boundaries of leisure. “Night-time” ceases to be an ornament: it becomes a value chain, dedicated products, specific professional skills, targeted services, and a programming slate able to adapt to an increasingly personalized international demand.
And Istanbul is a natural laboratory for this. In 2024 passengers in transit between its two international airports (Istanbul Airport and Sabiha Gökçen) were roughly 40.5 million: for product developers and route planners this means the hub is not only a passage. It is a threshold. A layover can become an “experience” in 24 or 48 hours: from the Historic Peninsula to Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, from the Basilica Cistern to Topkapı, all the way to the Galataport promenade and the views from Galata, with museums open in the summer evenings.
Istanbul, a city you can sample starting from a simple stopover
“The city never sleeps” is a refrain, but reductive. More than sleepless, Istanbul is tireless. It changes rhythm naturally: breakfast with simit in Karaköy, sunset on rooftops, spoonfuls of mantı and a Bosphorus cruise, open-air screenings and concerts, the late glow of the museums. It is a city that makes room and lends itself to becoming a test case for hybrid travel: business and leisure, transit and return, first taste and future itinerary. Daytime energy pours into the night without rupture: continuity is the real secret of its appeal.
Istanbul by Night & 48-Hour Stopover
The subject of transit deserves a dedicated lens: Istanbul, straddling two continents, is a global node.
Turning a layover into a preview of travel is not just storytelling; it is a strategy for distributing demand, a chance to bring the destination closer to those who brush against it for work, a seed for future returns. The “48 hours” itinerary proposed in the official materials is a natural progression: breakfast in Karaköy; walk along Galataport; the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Painting and Sculpture; the historic Tunnel; Galata Tower, open until 11 p.m. in summer; İstiklal with its red tram; street food; and when you need a pause, the Bosphorus from Beşiktaş. A nimble script for a tight schedule that speaks the language of today’s travelers.
Autumn is a gentle season
September is the month the Mediterranean loves most and, often, you can still be on the beach until November. For Türkiye it is the perfect window to communicate that blend of calm and vitality that makes a European “late summer” so appealing: fewer crowds, more accessible rates, convenient connections, warm seas. Demand exists and is growing, as confirmed by intra-European travel intent data, and Türkiye’s coasts know how to meet it without giving up anything: Blue Flag beaches, historical heritage, nautical products, rising gastronomy, cultural events. For the trade, it means living material to work with: “second summer” packages, themed shoulder seasons, networks of local partners already aligned on season extension.
Recent numbers set the course. In 2024 Türkiye welcomed 62.2 million international visitors, ranking fourth in the world for arrivals; the target for 2025 is 65 million visitors and USD 64 billion in revenue. In the first seven months of 2025, foreign visitors were 28,369,330. For Italy the trend is clear: 414,205 arrivals between January and July (+20.44% over the same period in 2024) and more than 720,000 Italians in 2024. Figures that speak of a solid relationship, with cross-sector opportunities, from gastronomy to cruises, from slow to adrenaline-filled, and a favorable sentiment to capitalize on.
The Aegean and the Riviera: the long summer
According to the latest “Monitoring Sentiment for Intra-European Travel” (Wave 22), 77% of Europeans planned trips between June and November, with 22% targeting September. This is the key to understanding why Türkiye’s coasts attract those seeking the sea without the August crowds, with softer prices and perfect temperatures. Direct connections do the rest: perceived proximity, simple logistics, high experiential value.
The splendid coasts of Türkiye, where sun and crystal-clear sea take center stage
Izmir is the gateway; Çeşme–Urla–Alaçatı the desire triangle: white beaches (Ilıca, Blue Flag), characterful dining, countryside breathing between vineyards and local trattorias. Moving down the Muğla coast, a rosary of bays composes a coherent mosaic: Bodrum with its language of resorts and elegance; Marmaris and İçmeler where bathing means quality; Dalyan with İztuzu, home to Caretta caretta; Datça with Palamutbükü, minimalist and authentic. Fethiye adds the showstopper of Ölüdeniz, often listed among the world’s most beautiful beaches, and the thrill of paragliding from Babadağ. It’s an Aegean that holds luxury and simplicity together, fine dining and fish meze, local kitchens and tables recognized worldwide.
Shifting toward the Turkish Riviera, Antalya reads like an open catalogue: 300 days of sun, 233 Blue Flags, the highest number among cities worldwide, and a sequence of beaches that, from the song of Patara to the urban headlands of Konyaaltı and Lara, up to the natural theater of Kaputaş, construct a Mediterranean “best of.” But here the sea is never enough: Perge and Aspendos remind us that every kilometer of coast is also a kilometer of history. And the dishes, in the end, are the right ones: Mediterranean cuisines that tell the territory and local white wines that keep the conversation lively.
Cappadocia beyond the postcard (balloons, MICHELIN, wineries)
There is a moment everyone takes home: when the balloons rise above the fairy chimneys, the sky still night-dark and the earth slowly taking on color. It is the exact hour when Cappadocia stages itself. In 2024 the region registered over 4.37 million entries to its museums and archaeological sites; balloon flights reached a record: 933,000 people saw the landscape from above. Numbers that speak volumes: a powerful icon and an organizational machine able to manage large flows without trivializing the experience.
But Cappadocia is not just a “postcard.” It is a school of flavors newly recognized on the MICHELIN map: it deserves a slow stop. Testi kebabı, the terracotta pot broken at the table, releasing long-cooked aromas, meats from the tandır, the tiny, poetic Kayseri mantı, the soups Ürgüp tarhanası and tandır çorbası, kayısı yahnisi, zerdeli pilav, stuffed quinces, ağpakla; then family sweets, incir yağlaması, köftür, kuru kaymak with honey, dolaz, and naturally baklava “in the Ürgüp style.” Not revival: living identity.
Wines complete the scene with a tale that goes back to the first Christian monks: local varieties such as Emir, Öküzgözü, Kalecik Karası, Boğazkere and Narince enhanced by volcanic terroir and generous sun. For the Italian trade the invitation is implicit: link balloons and wineries, cave-hotels and traditional cuisine, evening walks among the valleys and visits to the underground cities, accessible until 9 p.m.within a value chain that works year-round, with seasonal adjustments.
Sardis and the Lydian tumuli of Bintepe
The most recent news comes from the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris (6–16 July 2025): Sardis and the Lydian tumuli of Bintepe enter the UNESCO World Heritage List. With this addition, Türkiye’s UNESCO sites rise to 22. The result consolidates the country’s positioning as a great “open-air campus” and opens product opportunities around an Antiquity that is not dust, but living narrative.
Sardis is a decisive chapter: capital of the Lydians in the 6th century BC, a laboratory of the first gold and silver coinage, a history intertwined with the Pactolus River, the legend says that here Midas washed away his golden touch. Today the site offers well-preserved Roman structures (baths, gymnasium, acropolis, Temple of Artemis), houses the largest synagogue of the ancient world, and figures among the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse. Not far away, the Bin Tepe necropolis spreads more than 119 tumuli over about 7,500 hectares, with some of the largest tumulus graves in the world. It is a cultural landscape already in dialogue with today’s traveler: themed itineraries, multi-day routes, always with the care required in fragile contexts.
Here too, night is a lever: in summer the Night Museums project extends evening access to 27 sites across Türkiye, Sardis included. Reducing congestion and temperatures, increasing accessibility and visit quality: a replicable, measurable model.
In Rome, a guide who knows the way
There is a development of direct interest to the Italian market: the appointment, on 8 September 2025, of Esin Zeynep Selvi as Director of the Culture and Information Office in Rome. It is a return and a guarantee: experience in cultural promotion and international communication, operational knowledge of the Italian context, and a mandate at a time of growth in Turkish tourism. Tradition and innovation are the key words of her trajectory: exactly what is needed to narrate Türkiye in an equal dialogue with the Italian travel trade.
Value for the trade: how to turn interest into product
The question is practical: how to convert Italians’ consolidated attention into product? First lever, the calendar: use September–November as a “gentle” season, with sea proposals that combine Blue Flag beaches and historic sites, resorts and local cuisine, trekking and archaeology. Second, the night: packages with evening entry to sites, from Istanbul to the Turkish Riviera, and on to Sardis, that change the experience and ease the hot hours. Third, Cappadocia: put gastronomy at the center by linking balloons, wineries, cooking workshops, cave-hotels and evening walks. Fourth, Istanbul as a high-yield city break, including a “stopover” format, with 24–48-hour itineraries designed for a planned return. Fifth, the UNESCO dimension: Lydian and Ionian itineraries, thematic routes that connect places and stories with a contemporary narrative.
Sixth lever: stop telling Türkiye as exotic otherness and present it as a partner. Efficient, organized, with a supply chain that speaks the language of the Italian B2B. Growth data, a reputation for safety, season extension, gastronomic recognition, evening openings, cultural and tourist infrastructure: pieces of a positioning that is no longer just a “destination” but a “system.”
Many speeds, one country
Türkiye’s greatest virtue is welcoming different speeds. There are those who desire total immersion in 72 hours and those who dream of slow weeks among villages, markets and vineyards; those who seek wind for kitesurfing in Çeşme and those who want the quiet of a bay in Datça; those who want Aspendos by night and those who prefer Perge’s raw midday light; those moved by a dish that “breaks” at the table and those who end the day in the penumbra of a cellar hewn from tuff. Nothing is accidental: ready segments, local operators, extended hours, managed seasonality, international recognition. The trade’s task is to stitch them into coherent proposals, respecting places and communities.
The lexicon of relationship
For us at Odissey, Türkiye is above all a lexicon. Bridge-words connecting professionals and travelers: night (as opportunity), museum (as contemporary theater), stopover (as promise), gastronomy (as culture), UNESCO (as responsibility), Aegean and Riviera (as intelligent seasonality). In between, numbers that give measure and people who bring vision: museum directors, restaurateurs, balloon pilots, archaeologists, up to those—like the new Director in Rome, whose job is to circulate ideas, projects, good practices. It is this weave that makes Türkiye, today, one of the Mediterranean’s most compelling stories.
An open promise
Türkiye is not a “one and only” destination. It is a narrative platform in which every visitor can choose their own trajectory and every operator can build a product with above-average density. The promise for the Italian trade is clear: a prepared counterpart, recognized and accessible heritage, an extended season, a hub-city that facilitates entries and returns, a cuisine worthy of the most demanding travelers, a network of evening experiences that lightens the daytime and opens creative scenarios. The numbers say the route is right; UNESCO and MICHELIN recognitions confirm a strengthening position; the infrastructure, from airports to ports, from museums to archaeological areas, shows that the narrative is backed by facts.
The promise for visitors is just as simple: Türkiye speaks to each person in the language of desire.
If you seek light, you will have it for months; if you seek quiet, you will find it out of season; if you seek stories, its layers never end; if you seek flavors, the table is already set. And an imaginary voice whispers: we will likely meet again, soon, on a terrace overlooking the Bosphorus, in a bay in Muğla, or among the valleys of Cappadocia when the sky decides to kindle slowly.
It will always be a first time, even when you return.
