AKOED (Antalya Kaleiçi Hoteliers and Tradesmen Association) Chairman HASAN YETKİL WROTE
We call Kaleiçi our apple of eye, but…
The fires and loss of life in two separate hotels in Uludağ and Kartalkaya, which we recently witnessed, deeply saddened us and our country. As Antalya Kaleiçi hoteliers, it has caused us to re-evaluate our fire-related measures and self-criticize. As AKOED (Antalya Kaleiçi Hoteliers and Tradesmen Association), we have frequently stated that we want to cooperate with institutions to take the necessary measures against all factors, internal and external, for Kaleiçi. We have taken action to complete the minor shortcomings in our accommodations. However, we learned that all our businesses with tourism operation certificates must replace their doors with fire retardant doors. When we researched the order, we realized that it would take until the end of 2025 to produce the required number of doors for hotels and dormitories in our region. In addition, the inability to obtain permits for this change in our buildings, almost all of which are registered, means the closure of hotels and hostels in Kaleiçi.
The closure of our hotels and hostels in Kaleiçi and the city center means the closure of the income source of small and medium-sized businesses in the city center of Antalya. It is obvious that it will harm the economy of the people of Antalya.
The fact that domestic and foreign tourists who make early reservations, mostly for July and August, will not be able to find a place to stay when they come to our hotels will also cause great damage to the country's tourism and economy.
For these reasons, we propose that we be given time until the end of the season to take precautions in our hotels, and that the fire regulations be revised in a way that is appropriate for the region, keeping the safety of our guests at the forefront and protecting our registered buildings that are our cultural heritage, in our cultural heritage regions where there are registered buildings such as Kaleiçi, and that a Special Region Tourism Operation Certificate be prepared for our accommodation places in the regions where there are registered buildings. Because we see our guests as guests who have come to our home. For this reason, we argue that our registered buildings are actually homes and should be evaluated close to the home fire regulations.
The fact that inspections start from small hotels and licenses are canceled and sealed in small hotels before large hotels start to be inspected creates unnecessary concerns among our small business owners that they are being written off. All sanctions such as decommissioning and sealing should be stopped until the inspections of all accommodation facilities are completed. Equal time should be given to all accommodation facilities, regardless of scale. It should be predicted how much the bed capacity in Antalya will decrease as a result of the inspection.
Antalya has the largest share of tourism that brings foreign currency to our country. The starting point of tourism in Antalya is Kaleiçi.
In the light of all this information, we invite the authorities to act quickly together in order to find a reasonable solution to eliminate our grievances.
