Dental Tours in Turkey: All-in-One Treatment Services

In many European countries dental treatment is very expensive, they are not covered by insurance and the waiting lists are long. There is a relatively simple solution for these problems: dental tourism abroad. For Europeans, Turkey is increasingly one of the hotspots for dental tourism thanks to its proximity, cost and quality in the field: Same dental treatment with the same medical standards for 75% less, without waiting for weeks or months. Plus, Turkey follows European Community Health Standards. Back in 2009, 150,000+ medical tourists chose Turkey.

To tab into the demand, DentalToursTurkey.com has been launched to provide all-in-one dental treatment packages. “We have all-in-one packages that includes not only the dental treatment but also flight tickets, airport-hotel-clinic transfers, hotel reservations, and city tours & attractions. We are able offer our packages with all these services at very low rates because we can get the best price of the service providers as their regular customer,” said Deniz Candan, Operations Manager at Dental Tours Turkey.

"We have already organized more than 1300 treatment packages (including more than 3000 dental implants) since our establishment in January 2007. A personal guide of our agency accompanies our patients throughout their stay. We constantly improve our services based on the feedback we receive from our patients,” added Ms Candan.

Turkey is one of the hotspots in dental tourism for Europeans. Europeans can get the same dental treatment
 with the same medical standards for 75% less; plus can have a great vacation in Istanbul.

It looks like DentalToursTurkey.com can enable medical tourists to have a high quality dental care at affordable costs and spend good time in the historic city of Istanbul and people can get dental treatment even during a weekend trip. Because Istanbul is max 3.5 hours away from European destinations.

Source : Dental Tours Turkey Launches All-in-One Treatment Services in Turkey

Turkey climbs one place to sixth in World’s Top Tourism Destinations List

According to United Nations World Trade Organisation (UNWTO) Tourism Highlights 2012, Turkey moved up one position to sixth place (with 29 million tourists) overtaking the United Kingdom in the 10 ranking by international tourist arrivals.

From UNWTO Tourism Highlights, 2012 Edition:

France continues to lead the ranking of international tourist arrivals (79 million), and ranks third in receipts (US$ 54 billion), while the United States ranks first in receipts (US$ 116 billion) and second in arrivals (62 million). Spain is still the second largest earner worldwide and the first in Europe (US$ 60 billion), while ranking fourth in the world by arrivals (57 million). China continues to rank third in arrivals (58 million) and fourth in receipts (US$ 48 billion), while Italy remains in fifth place in both arrivals (46 million) and receipts (US$ 43 billion).

Turkey moved up one place to sixth in arrivals and is twelfth in receipts. The United Kingdom is seventh in both arrivals and receipts. Germany continues to rank eighth in tourist arrivals and sixth in receipts, while Malaysia is ninth and fourteenth respectively. Australia, Macao (China), and Hong Kong (China) complete the top ten ranking by receipts in eighth, ninth and tenth place respectively, while Mexico closes the top ten by arrivals in tenth position.

UNWTO ranks countries according to the two key tourism indicators: international tourist arrivals and international tourism receipts. 8 of the top 10 destinations appear on both lists, despite showing marked differences in terms of the type of tourists they attract, their average length of stay and their spending per trip and per night. In the case of international tourism receipts, changes not only reflect relative performance.

Although Turkey is 6th in the World’s Top 10 Tourism Destinations By International Arrival list, it is not in top 10 in the World’s Top 10 Tourism Destinations By International Tourism Receipts list.

Maiden Tower, Istanbul

World’s Top 10 Tourism Destinations By International Arrival

1 - France (79.5 million)

2 - United States (62.3 million)

3 - China (57.6 million)

4 - Spain (56.7 million)

5 - Italy (46.1 million)

6 - Turkey (29.3 million)

7 - United Kingdom (29.2 million)

8 - Germany (28.4 million)

9 - Malaysia (24.7 million)

10 - Mexico (23.4 million)

Turkish Airlines is flying between Istanbul and Maldives

Now you can have one more option to fly to Maldives. Turkish Airlines, the national flag carrier airline of Turkey, has launched flights between Istanbul Turkey and Male Maldives starting from November 24th 2012. Flights to the Maldives will be operated 5 times weekly. The airline has priced introductory round trip fares from Istanbul to the Maldives from 598 Euros, including taxes and fees.

Maldives, one of the world's most popular destinations for leisure travelers, is the 206th destination and 92th country to which Turkish Airlines fly. Fast growing, Turkish Airlines has reached its goal of getting its 200th aircraft, a Boeing 737-900, in its fleet last week. The airline, compared with the same period in 2011, increased its sales revenue  by 30% to 11,2 Billion TRY and recorded an operating profit of 1,08 Billion TRY.  Net profit increased 655% compared to the previous period; to 868 Million TRY.

Flight Number	Start	Days	Departure		Arrival
TK 730	24.Nov.2012	Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday	Istanbul	20:25	Maldives	07:10
TK 731	25.Nov.2012	Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday	Maldives	09:00	Istanbul	14:30

Tourism paradise Maldives are nearer to Turkey as Turkish Airlines start to fly from Turkey (Istanbul)
to Maldives (Male).

Istanbul is in Top 10 best cities to travel

It is so delightful how tourism in Istanbul came a very long way in just a decade. This largest and most beautiful city of Turkey which spans between Asia and Europe as well as modern and ancient has been visited by 7 million foreigners in 2010, up from 2.4 million visitors of 2000. [1] This makes it the 10th most visited city in the world.[2]

Although still largely (and narrowly) known for its historic center (Sultanahmet-Old City) with majestic mosques and ancient shopping bazaars, this is only a fraction of what Istanbul offers for a holiday visit. Istanbul offers great shopping experience, a world class cuisine (ancient Ottoman recipes are must try), beautiful shores of Bosphorus and surprisingly rich and entertaining night life. It is also quite easy to travel to other tourism centers in Turkey from Istanbul such as Turquoise Coast a.k.a Turkish Riviera.

So in short, Istanbul is one of the best cities in the world to visit. Actually the 3rd best, according to the 2012 World’s Best Awards. Travel + Leisure readers voted Istanbul the 3rd best city of the world to travel to. But what is more promising is the fast rise of the city in the list: Istanbul has risen from 5th spot to 2nd. And it is now the Europe's second best city to visit [3]:

"New York City holds its title for the twelfth year in a row as the Best City in the U.S. and Canada, and ranks No.7 among top cities overall, while Bangkok retains its number one ranking in the world for the third year in a row. Istanbul rises to its highest ranking ever in the survey at No. 3 on the list of Top Cities Overall. Among cities in the U.S. and Canada, Chicago rises to the No. 2 spot and New Orleans moves up to No. 5 this year from No. 6 in 2011." [2]

Istanbul is rising in almost all types of tourism such as medical. Thanks to the high quality of healthcare of private hospitals, medical tourism has surged in Turkey with laser eye surgery is the common among medical tourists.[1] Recent, popularity of Turkish Soap Operas in the Arab world also helped this part of the region to rediscover Turkey as a holiday destination.

Although largely known with its historic center, Istanbul offers much more to visitors.
In the photo Ortakoy district of Istanbul seen from European side. Other side of the Bosphorus is Asia.
Bogazici Bridge connecting Asia and Europe can be seen behind.

Worlds Top 10 Cities for Travel & Leisure

RANK	2011	NAME	SCORE
1	1	Bangkok	89.87
2	2	Florence	89.14
3	5	Istanbul	89.11
4	6	Cape Town	88.64
5	8	Sydney	88.52
6	3	Rome	88.49
7	4	New York City	88.12
8	-	Hong Kong	88.03
9	-	Kyoto, Japan	87.90
10	10	Paris	87.67

[1] - Istanbul
[2] - World's Most Visited Cities

[3] - World Best Cities 2012

[2] - Travel+Leisure Press Release

For Those Who Died Alone - Pentagram (Mezarkabul)

Mezarkabul (known as Pentagram in Turkey) is an internationally acclaimed Turkish metal band known for integrating Anatolian elements into their music. They use Mezarkabul (means 'accepting the grave', or literally 'grave accept' in Turkish) as international name since there is a famous American doom metal band called Pentagram.

For Those Who Died Alone, an instrumental in their 2001 heavy metal album named Unspoken, is an elegy for those 17,000 souls who have died in the devastating 1999 İzmit earthquake. This is in my opinion one of the best  instrumentals composed by a Turkish musician with trivial elements of Anatolian music.


As one of the commentators wrote in YouTube, if life was a movie its soundtrack would definitely been For Those Who Died Alone.

More Greeks are emigrating to Turkey for jobs

Because of the severe economic crisis at home, many Greeks are considering emigration but many traditional emigration destinations like United States, Germany, France and United Kingdom are not doing any better. On the other hand neighboring Turkey is growing around 10% every year and seems it is not effected a lot from the European economic crisis yet. And more and more of Greeks are deciding to leave for Turkey. Greek pilots are finding business opportunities in booming Turkish Airlines while academics are taking positions at Turkish universities.

Greek pilot Takis Lagopoulos is one of these new immigrants in Istanbul. has lost his job when Greek Olympic Airways bankrupted, he turned to Turkey for his next job. Booming economy is not the only reason. The way of thinking is very similar in both countries so adaptation to Turkey is much easier. It is also only 1 hour flight away from home. Actually, his hometown is probably nearer to Istanbul than a lot of his Turkish colleagues’. 30 Greek pilots work in Turkish Airlines.

More and more foreigners are heading to Istanbul to look for a job. And more and more of them are Greeks. “Turkey is a rising market with 70+ million population” says Turkish-Greek Business Council Chairman Selim Egeli. “Skilled and well educated Greeks will not have any problem to find a job or start up a new company in Turkey. Turkey’s jobless rate, although high, is far below the Euro-zone average, and is not trending up at the moment.”



Dimitris Triantaphyllou is a Greek teaching in Turkey’s English language Kadir Has University. “A Greek teaching international relations in a Turkish university and running a research center was unthinkable just a decade ago” says Mr. Triantaphyllou “but thinks have changed.”
It is really great to see that the old, stupid and completely artificial hostility between Turkey and Greece fading away. In the past, largely thanks to both countries’ brain washing education systems, people on the opposite sites of beautiful Aegean Sea were in a mini-cold war although they have much more common way of life. Traditional indoctrination against Greeks have been irreversably damaged during the massive 1999 Izmit earthquake when many Turks watched large number of Greek rescuers working in collapsed buildings days and nights looking for survivors:

“Both the official response and dialog and the reactions of the ordinary Greek were given wide coverage almost every day in every newspaper and on every TV channel in Turkey. Incidents such as people bringing in food donations to municipalities in Greece and blood drives in Greece specifically to be sent to earthquake victims in Turkey were highlighted. The emotional language in reporting differed significantly from the usual rhetoric found in both countries—words such as “neighbor”, “true friend” were given in the headlines.”
Source :  Greek–Turkish earthquake diplomacy

It is not only the individual job hunters coming to Turkey. Greek businesses are also looking at their larger neighbour for business opportunities. “Numerious Greek firms for example in the IT Industry, have been investing in Turkey since the crisis started” says Selim Egeli. “While the consumption in Greece has plumped, it is increasing in Turkey”.

So far the number of Greek emigrants to Turkey is estimated to be only several thousands.

Oludeniz and Icmeler are in Top 25 Beach Destinations list

TripAdvisor, one of world’s largest travel site, has announced the winners of its annual 2012 Travelers’ Choice® Beach Destinations awards. 181 top beach locations were named around the world including Africa, Asia, Australia, Brazil, Caribbean, Central America, Europe, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Middle East, South America, South Pacific, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, U.K. and the U.S. Turkey's Oludeniz and Icmeler has been in the list.

Ölüdeniz, a small beach resort in Fethiye in South West coast of Turkey. It is the 14th best beach destination in the list. Other then offering one of the best beaches in the world, Oludeniz is also one of the best places for para glide due to its unique panoramic views, and the Babadağ Mountain's exceptional height. İçmeler, a popular Turkish holiday resort 8 kilometres away from Marmaris, is 24th.

Both Oludeniz and Icmeler beaches are on Turkey's Turquoise Coast, a 1000 km coastline in South West Turkey famous with the best holiday resorts in Turkey.

Oludeniz (Blue Lagoon) offers one of the best beaches and paragliding spots in the world.

Where is Olu deniz? Oludeniz is on the famous Turquoise Coast (also known as Turkish Riviera), the Mediterranean coast of Turkey between Cesme and Alanya. Oludeniz is somewhere in the middle on the Turquoise Coast in Fethiye (see the map below). Icmeler is also on the Turkish Riviera, in Marmaris.

Turquoise Coast (Turkish Riviera) is the coasts of Cesme, Kusadasi, Bodrum, Marmaris, Fethiye, Kemer, Antalya and Alanya. The coast has the best tourist destinations in Turkey. 

2012 Travelers’ Choice® Beach Destinations Top 25

1. Providenciales, Turks and Caicos
2. Palm/Eagle Beach, Aruba
3. Tulum, Mexico
4. Negril, Jamaica
5. Saint Pete Beach, Florida
6. Boracay, Philippines
7. Cancun, Mexico
8. Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
9. Miami/Miami Beach, Florida
10. Varadero, Cuba
11. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
12. Playa del Carmen, Mexico
13. Virginia Beach, Virginia
14. Oludeniz, Turkey
15. Honolulu, Hawaii
16. Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
17. Daytona Beach, Florida
18. Fort Lauderdale, Florida
19. Lahaina, Hawaii
20. Cayo Coco, Cuba
21. Marsa Alam, Egypt
22. Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
23. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
24. Icmeler, Turkey
25. Puerto Alcudia, Spain