The president of the Uruguayan Association of Travel Agencies (Audavi), Carlos Pera, named Turkey as one of the “fashionable” destinations that Uruguayans choose to visit, above all, before the arrival of holidays such as Easter and Carnival.
This Monday, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Ritchter scale struck southeastern Turkey and also northern Syria, leaving more than 2,300 dead and 2,800 collapsed buildings.
Within this framework, and as a result of the earthquake that occurred at 4:17 local time —with its epicenter in Gaziantep, Turkey— Pera maintained in dialogue with El Observador that “neither the tourist areas nor the infrastructure were affected in the slightest” and he hopes that there will be no difficulties for those who have a scheduled trip to Turkey in the coming days or months.
The cities that receive the most tourism in that country are: Istanbul, Cappadocia, Izmir, Antalya, Alanya, and all those on the Mediterranean coast.
The head of Audavi emphasized that the infrastructure, tourist roads, hotels, electricity supply and sanitation in the tourist area were not affected by the two powerful earthquakes that affected Turkey and Syria.
Along the same lines, the manager of Hiperviajes, Fernando Riva, expresses himself with information from his operator in Turkey: “The closest (tourist) point to the affected area is almost 500km away,” he says. and adds that despite the seriousness of what happened, the tourist spots are far from the two large fault lines where earthquakes occur, one is to the north and the other to the south. “Our next service will be on 2/17, by that time everything will be completely normalized,” they estimate from this travel agency.
Within this framework, El Observador spoke with Ahmed Mustafa, director of Euroriente Travel, a reference company in tourism in that country, which is located in Istanbul: “The tourist circuits have not been affected, we maintain operations with total normality, but the whole country is in a moment of deep sadness,” admits Mustafa while stating that the earthquake zone is practically not visited by Latin American passengers or from speak spanish.
What to take into account when traveling to Turkey?
There are currently 16 active Uruguayan travel assistance in Turkey, according to information provided by Assist Card to El Observador.
Asked about the scope of this assistance in case of traveling to this country, The Country Manager of Assist Card Uruguay, Raúl Schiaffarino, assures that in the event of this type of accident, “medical assistance is covered.”
“They are places that are very difficult to access due to the emergency, so what is recommended to do is, once the emergency ceases, collect the information on the expenses caused by said accident so that the travel assistance company can take charge and make the corresponding reimbursements such as: expenses for medical attention, transfers within the country if necessary, change of air tickets, if someone had to stay longer or anticipate their return in case of medical assistance”, explains Schiaffarino.
In this sense, from the company recommend that before a trip close to this destination, wait for the state of emergency to cease and the alert situation to end, because it is still expected that buildings will continue to be demolished. “In the next hours or days it will be known more clearly how to proceed. But ideally, the best thing – and without having all the necessary data at the moment – would undoubtedly be to reschedule the trip.”.
