THE USE OF CULTURAL IMAGES IN THE FOREIGN INTRODUCTORY FILMS OF THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND TOURISM

Yıl 2012, Cilt: 12 Sayı: 24, 305 - 330, 01.12.2012

Şafak Ünüvar Sedat Şimşek

Öz

Recently, many positive developments such as economic and commercial
development and thus increasing purchasing power, increasing knowledge and experiences, having more free time, developing life standards etc. have enhanced the
number of people participating in touristic activities. Therefore, tourism has been one of
the sectors that have a great importance for countries in terms of economy, socio-cultural
changes and development. Tourism, on the top of the list of fastest developing sectors of
the world, had 966 million participants in 2011 and tourism expenditure in this year was
909 billion dollars. In the report of “Tourism 2020 Vision” prepared by World Tourism
Organization, it is stated that number of people participating in touristic activities will be
1,5 billion and tourism income will be 2 trillion dollars in 2020. In terms of Turkey,
tourism has been one of the sectors that have developed most and expanded over the
world average, thus has been a key sector for economic development.
Today, there is an intensive competition in tourism, between both facilities at micro
level and national governmental agencies at macro level. Competition conditions change
fast; thus, quality, quantity and kinds of products and touristic promotions are increasing
regardless of capacity of agencies. Governmental tourism agencies (Ministry Of Culture
and Tourism, Foreign Affairs, Embassies and Attaches abroad etc.) do have to draw
attention of tourists by informing touristic values of the country. For this purpose, mass
media should be used for promotion, both visually and in written. Thus, potential tourists
will be informed and a positive image will be gained.
Ministry Of Culture and Tourism, as the top agency, has set many targets in “2023
Turkey Tourism Strategy” to gain more advantage from tourism. It has been aimed that
Turkey will be an important destination point among the five top countries in terms of
number of tourists and tourism income, and will be an international brand by 2023.
However, promotions in the tourism market should be efficiently made to reach these
targets. People should have information about touristic values and opportunities of a
country to participate in tourism activities. This will be possible throughonly an efficient
promotion. For this purpose, different features of Turkish culture that has thousands of
years of history is being forwarded via promotional films of Ministry Of Culture and
Tourism to the target group.
In Turkey, touristic promotion is made by focusing on values of certain destination,
thus a general promotion of the country. Promotional activities focusing on natural
beauties are sometimes successful for drawing interest of tourism consumers, but it
mostly fails for increasing competitive power because they are not minimized on religion
or city basis at micro level. If promotional activities continue to be made with limited
contents at macro level (national), this can be inefficient for marketing of country tourism.
Today, tourists are looking for new destinations at which they can experience new
cultures and adventures. Many tourists do not want to spend their holiday between
artificial, unaesthetic, unappealingly built concrete constructions. No matter how much a
region has valuable touristic supply, if it cannot market these values, it does not make a
sense.
The most important feature of promotional films prepared by Ministry Of Culture and
Tourism is that they use the elements binding the future and the past. Ministry Of Culture
and Tourism mostly made a succession of promotional films to introduce Turkey. In the
research, the longest promotional film of Ministry Of Culture and Tourism used for
promotional activities in 2011 was analyzed with discourse analysis method and
poststructuralist approach. As a result of the analysis, cultural figures used in the films are
also used for promotional activities of Turkey, this can be considered as an appropriate
implementation for creating an image, and cultural figures used in the film inform the tourists about Turkey.( Moreover, focusing on promotional films in the audio- visual
tools such as television, cinema etc. , more comprehensive and accurate promotional
activities about Turkey, benefiting from internet more , promotional activities about
touristic values of Turkey except Istanbul and Antalya, emphasizing on diversity of
touristic products, promotional activities during the year, not only tourism season, being a
centre for the three religion, thus being a belief tourism, thermal areas and using these
elements for attracting more tourists in health tourism, focusing on safety theme in the
films that is considered as an important factor for choices of tourists will make a positive
contribution to expected benefits from tourism promoting , and thus promotions of
governmental and private organizations, especially Ministry Of Culture and Tourism,
will be benefited more and effects of the them will increase.)

Anahtar Kelimeler

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism, foreign promotion, tourism promotion, cultural image

KÜLTÜR VE TURİZM BAKANLIĞININ YURTDIŞI TANITIM FİLMLERİNDE KÜLTÜREL İMGE KULLANIMI

Öz

Turizm hareketlerinin giderek arttığı günümüzde, turistik değerlere sahip ülkeler daha çok sayıda insanın ülkeyi ziyaret etmelerini sağlamak amacıyla tanıtım faaliyetlerini yoğun bir şekilde uyguladığı görülmektedir. Tanıtım faaliyetleri her kesimin görevi olmakla beraber Türkiye açısından en üst düzeyde resmi kurum olarak Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı’da tanıtım çalışmalarının ana merkezi durumunda görevini yerine getirmektedir. Tanıtım faaliyetlerinin başında da yurtdışında yapılan tanıtım filmleri gelmektedir. Çok sayıda ülkede gösterilen tanıtım filmlerinde hedef turistik tüketicilere ülkenin doğal güzelliklerinin yanı sıra sahip olduğu kültürel değerlerde bir mesaj çerçevesinde sunulmaktadır. Çalışmada Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı’nın yurtdışı tanıtım kampanyalarında kullandığı ve en uzun süreli olan film, söylem analizi yöntemi ve söylem analizinde de post yapısalcı bir yaklaşım ile çözümlenmiştir. Çözümleme sonucunda tanıtım filminde, Türkiye’nin geçmiş ile geleceği birbirine bağlayan unsurları iç içe kullandığı ve modern bir ülke olmasının yanı sıra geçmişine de sahip çıkan ve zengin bir kültürel mirasa sahip ülke imajı oluşturulmaya çalışıldığı görülmüştür.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, yurtdışı tanıtım, turizm tanıtımı, kültürel imge