Meetings Matter Chatter
Industry trends and topics pertaining to the travel and meetings industry
Meetings Matter Chatter
Leaving it Better: Destination Transformation
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Join us for an engaging episode featuring Eda Özden, Managing Director at Meptur in Türkiye who will introduce the innovative concept of regenerative tourism. This approach emphasizes the importance of leaving the destinations we visit in an improved state, ensuring that our travels contribute positively to the environment and local communities. Tune in to discover how we can all make a meaningful impact through our travel choices.
Hi there. Welcome to Meetings Matter Chatter. My name is Jenna Baker, and I'm the Vice President of Account Management at BCD Meetings and Events, and I am your host. Today I am joined by Ada Osden, who is the managing director at MEPTOR, which is a destination management company based in Turkey. Today, Ada is going to talk to us about making an impact in a destination by leaving it better than you found it. Ada, welcome.
SPEAKER_01Hi, thank you so much, and I'm very excited to be here. I'm a big fan of the podcast and postcasts in general. So thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. So let's start with your background. How did you get started in this industry? And how did you get where you are today?
SPEAKER_01I didn't exactly plan on becoming a part of this industry, let alone becoming a destination expert. RDMC was founded by my family almost 50 years ago now. And so we did grow up in this industry, you know, surrounded by travels, events, and incredible experiences. And then at some point, one thing led to another. Life just led me into this job. And, you know, making your way up in the family business has its ups and downs, certainly. But I was now looking back, I've learned from some brilliant people in our industry, both clients and colleagues alike, and um saw firsthand the impact we can make. Um I know we always joke we're not, you know, uh reinventing the wheel here, but we're we certainly are making an impact. So seeing that for the past uh 15 years now has been very exciting.
SPEAKER_00I would say that about half the people I speak with didn't intend to be in this industry or even know what this industry was. You probably knew what it was since your family had it, but I'm in your same boat. I didn't know about this until my my mid-20s probably is probably when I joined uh this world. So you live in Turkey and you work there as well, obviously. Some of our listeners might not be that familiar with your country. Can you just talk about some of the history, um, some of the events that have occurred there?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, it's one of the most historic lands, of course, as everybody knows, cradle of civilizations and all the cliches that you would say, you know, the Mesopotamian uh rivers originate from here. So a lot of first, you know, first agriculture, first money, first settled villages, first language, it all happened in these lands. Funniest is actually Santa Claus is even from Turkey. He's not Turkish, uh, but he's uh Greek Saint Nicholas from the south of Turkey currently, which we are uh supporting the church of. If you watch where Elizabeth Taylor in the movie where Caesar meets Cloopatra, that's actually in southern Turkey as well. So everywhere you dig and go around, there's hundreds of different civilizations that have called this place home. So when you when we take you on like a historical site tour, it's not one civilization. We take you on visiting, you know, five millennia of cultures. And if you go to the east, 15 millennia of cultures. So it's a very interesting land. And even today, we're still at the heart of you know the world, and sometimes it causes us headaches, and sometimes it causes us beautiful discoveries. So it's a rose with its thorns, I would say. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So sorry, going back to the Santa Claus, I just want to dig into that a little bit deeper. So you said so he was born in Greece?
SPEAKER_01Uh, so the Western Turkish lands were Greek lands in the in the past. It's a town called Mira. Um, now it in Turkish now we call it Demre. And he is the he was the patient saint of kids and sailors. And where he was born is not exactly uh sure, just probably in an island off the coast. But now the church where he worked all his life, Church of St. Nicholas and his tomb, are open for visitors. It's a it's a pilgrimage site as well. And we're very proud to be supporting that site and the nearby ancient city discoveries. It's it's just one of the one of the many things, you know. The term um Caesar says Vene Vide Vichy, that's said in the north coast of Turkey, for example. So, like so many cliches that you read about, you know, growing up, they've all taken place here, which is uh very uh endless information, well to discover.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, but that's awesome. I mean, people love that stuff. So you're in the destination management business, you obviously do events for clients, and you have the perfect country where you can show them all these really unique things. So, in addition to just probably taking your clients around to those places, you actually took things a little bit further, which is what we're gonna talk about today, right? By finding a way to positively impact those destinations that you were visiting and bringing people to. So, how did you come up with that idea?
SPEAKER_01So traditionally, Turkish people are very flexible people and with the right, um, if you follow the rules with the right um permissions and everything, most of our historical sites were always open for events. So we certainly didn't invent that. I mean I wouldn't want to take that credit. However, for example, everybody was doing events and still are in the F Association City or in Byzantine cisterns of Istanbul or the Grand Bazaar, for example. And yes, we have been a leading company in those, but the part that we wanted to discuss is how do you take it a step further and actually benefit our historical sites? You know, Turkey is not a rich country, we're still in a developing world, I guess. And which oftentimes, one, means sustainability doesn't always come first. And two, uh, we don't have natural resources like oil or gas. Our biggest natural resource is our history, historical heritage. Uh, but local communities don't always make a living out of it. So we thought, how can we help with sustainable and regenerative events? That that beautiful word that I that we discovered, how to protect those sites and benefit those communities in a way that would help the destination. And not just, you know, the the big hotel owners or the or the or the governments, but actually the local communities there. And that's been the mind shift, I would say, that we've had.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you mentioned sustainability. And when we think about sustainability, there's there's lots of development goals that the United Nations created. A lot of people think it's just about recycling or it's just kind of one thing, but it's it's many things. There's actually 17 different sustainable development goals. Which goals did you focus on when it came to the sustainable development goals when you were thinking through this idea? Um, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So I think looking at it, goal eight, which is decent work and economic growth, and then goal 11, which is sustainable cities and communities, those are the areas that, you know, yes, can we not take you to a beach clean? Of course we can. However, you clean a beach, it gets dirty again. Not that it's not important to clean it, but we thought, how can we do more sustainable and permanent benefits to communities? And whether it's funding conservation projects, restoring historical sites, providing resources to local schools, for example, universities that support the excavations, how can we support those students and create those ripple effects where people will actually take part in protecting their history and leave it better about um for the future generations? So, and yes, as you said, and you had that beautiful podcast about sustainability, and there were so many things there that I wish we could implement much quicker and sooner in our destination. But unfortunately, you know, when you don't live in the most developed world, sustainability like carbon footprints and everything don't come in first. So we felt quite, and our clients kept asking us, like we want to do more, but we just couldn't come up with honest solutions, I would say. And and yeah, that's what we focused on. But also the truth is even if you do sustain tourism very sustainably, there will be carbon footprint. I mean, people are taking flights. So there is that inevitable footprint, anyways. So that's the that's how we tried to look at it, because um, as sustainability got more and more popular, we became Turkey became at a disadvantage almost. So we wanted to overcome that as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I like the approach that you took. So you knew that you wanted to make an impact, you had some ideas, but how did this really come to life?
SPEAKER_01Well, you always need the the right clients, right? Our ideas are nothing until you have a client with the right budget and the mindset. So we because we do our department, especially mostly does corporate travel, you know, corporates come with their rules and regulations and risk assessments. And I'm not saying all of them are boring. Certainly, not some of them are very creative individuals, but they're not the most open to trying new things. But we work with some private organizations that are much more open to trying new things. And we had this or we had this one event in October 2019 where uh along with Istanbul and Kapadokia, which are main sites, they wanted to include Upper Mesopotamia, which is literally 35 kilometers from the Syrian border. That's like 15 miles, and the war was still waging on at the time. But they the uh world's oldest temple has been found there. There's Netflix episodes on it. They wanted to visit that site for the day. So we charter a plane for the more um come in in the morning and leave at night. And these decision makers gave us a rare opportunity to really, they said, go crazy. We have 10 hours in this destination. This is one of the most historic places in the world. Get us to experience it in a way that nobody else will. And this destination had never, I don't think they've ever seen Americans come. They had the village children come in and perform for us at the airport. They were that excited. It was so touching. And and yeah, and there we decided we started, they said, why don't why are we doing the event at the museum? Why don't we do it at the actual ancient city? And we said, but it's open land. They said, Well, let's clean the open fields. So we cut the grass, we added toilets to this uh site, we added staircases so people can visit it by the famous river of Euphrates. And we just started doing all these things to be able to do an event there, and then we realized, well, we're actually leaving this place so much better than when we first visited it, and it will stay like that, you know, for and more people will visit it because it has these facilities and things like that. And we just discovered we can actually do this in all sorts of places around the country, and that's how it started. And I want to add the biggest emotional point came, these people were so well off, they all had their private jets and everything, but they were after that authentic local experience. So, like the definition of luxury wasn't a luxurious hotel. The fact that they could enjoy the ancient wines of these lands by the Euphrates in this private area, but still, you know, open to public, that was a bigger luxury. So we ticked off a lot of things with one event, you know, business results, uh, sustainability results and everything. So that's how it, that's how the light bulb moment started.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that is so cool. So after you created the, you know, you you mowed the grass and you created the toilets and set up the land, did you then go back there with other client groups?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, our leisure tour groups of our different departments were visiting the museum of the ancient city, but not the excavation site itself. So, for example, we started taking them there, and we've we've been in touch with them in the years to come since then, and the tourism numbers have definitely increased. And in different parts, also, like in the city, we brought a lot of the artisans to do a private marketplace because they didn't have time enough to discover the whole city. And we still are buying gifts from those artisans, for example, after all these years. So, you know, our support has been continuous, and they discovered oh, we can actually do corporate events, corporate gifts with these with our artifact. So it also opened that mindset for the locals too. So yeah, it's been it was very personally also for me. It was a 2019 was a life-changing year. And I was also pregnant, like eight months pregnant at this event. So it was, it was uh yeah, life-changing at every step of the way.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that is unbelievable. So then that has so you you had that amazing experience, and that inspired you to look at other destinations, right? So, like what were the other trips that you came up with that would be similar to this one?
SPEAKER_01Um, so so the pandemic started only a few months after that. Um, but Turkey didn't close borders simply because they couldn't afford to. And so tourism actually kept going, except the first few few months. We had live events almost every week, September 2020 onwards, and especially when the weather is nice on the southwestern coast, a lot of our clients did open-air events and gatherings at uh you know, privatizing hotels in the southwest, like Bodroom and those famous beach areas. And we said, Well, why aren't we doing the event of these, you know, the gala dinner or whatever off sites in the ancient cities? So we started doing events, for example, in ISOS and and Kriene and these ancient cities around the region. And when I there are uh Greco-Roman sites, so we would use the amphitheater for concerts and things like that. And we realized um the excavation, there are hundreds of excavations going on in Turkey at the same time. There's no way the government has you know finances to support all of them. So we actually kept going to the smaller ones and leaving, for example, we then ended up doing an event in Fasilis near Antalya, which is like our sort of all-inclusive area. And Fasilis is we uh gifted them a massive tractor so that because apparently it was a marble sculpture area, they had these massive columns, but they couldn't raise them straight again, which they really wanted to, so they needed a tractor. So our events with two events, we gifted them a massive tractor, and they're still using it. So there's all these different parts, different things for different parts, I will say. Whatever is necessary.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that is fantastic. You are really making a huge impact. I'm so impressed by that. Now, you had spoken to me earlier about one of the projects that you worked on, which involved some underwater archaeology. Can you talk a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_01Yes, and that that connection didn't come from us. Probably the most inspirational business leader I've ever met in my life through business uh meetings. He said, I want to bring in my community and do events, fundraising for underwater archaeology foundation, uh, which I didn't even know was a thing. Turns out off the coast of Turkey is um where was where piracy was invented. So there is an incredible amount of underwater wrecks. And in some of them, they found, and that's that's the one that the Uluburan shipwreck, for example, apparently one of the most important in the world, changed our understanding of the Bronze Age trade and Silk Road because they found things on it from amber from the Baltics, glass from Sudan, some spices from Afghanistan. I mean, parts of the world that people didn't even know talk to each other. So this uh these we did these two fundraising trips where we raised funds to convert an old ship into the world's second largest underwater archaeology ship. And there are students that come and work there from all over the world. Every other week or something, new students come and they keep making these new discoveries. And it was featured in BBC recently, which made all of us cry for days. And we're just so proud to have contributed. So we did that pro bono. We didn't do it completely free of charge, but we didn't charge for any of our services. And it was the most magical period. And every night we still did really special events, like we closed off ancient cities. One night we did an event on an island, no lights, toilets, nothing. We carried everything on our backs. It was the island where Santa Claus is believed to have been born. And we people sat on the floor on Turkish carpets and we just roasted some wild boar, and and that was the event. And again, it was very obviously welcome people for this fundraising trip, and they were all mesmerized by this experience they were having. So I I emphasize that because there's there is the business aspect. So, of course, you know, this is we run a business, so I don't want to say that we're just doing it for the good of our hearts, but if you can combine the two, that's ideal, right?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. If this doesn't, if what you're saying doesn't make people want to visit Turkey, I'm not sure what could be. Well, that's my job at the end. Yes, exactly. Exactly. But yeah, what a what a fantastic way to create really, really unique experiences and like you said, to feel really good about the work that that they're doing. You've also been able to make some other donations to local communities through your efforts. Can you talk a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_01Yes, so we thought, as I said, like, you know, when you buy museum entry tickets, that goes to the government. When you stay in big hotels, that goes to the owners. We were trying to find ways of incorporating the local communities, but without making like them a almost like a site to visit, because they're actually people. So, for example, in the southwest area that I was telling you, we still have in the mountains nomadic communities. So we brought these nomadic communities and we said, we're not gonna give you, we're gonna give you the budget, but we're not gonna give you any feedback. Create, just like you're settling, you know, as if you chose this point to settle in, set up a tent camp for us, set up food for us, bring your animals, and let people come in and experience a day, an afternoon with you. So, and and as I said, we tried not to curate it because that would have felt um weird. Uh, so we brought these nomadic communities to the beach. So we had like camels on the beach, and the cliche is there's camels in Turkey. There actually isn't. So this was like a very rare thing that we were seeing. And people just loved interacting with these kids that were so obviously tough and resilient, and saw their ways of creating paints and foods and preserving, for example, long-lasting cheese and things like that that are actually very popular these days, you know, fermentation and all of that. So, for example, that was one way where we incorporated them. Um, in other ways, you know, we've done there's a very small ancient city that is not very visited. Uh, we brought actually my husband's company brought night light lighting. So we brought these night lights. So that site is now being able to both be used for events because there's the lighting, and also be visited at night. And I must say, I don't think they it got inspired from us, but you never know. The government started uh night museum visits, ancient cities in a lot of places in Turkey now. So, you know, who learns from who? I don't know. But so we've been, and then um anything that we use at our events, like printers, computers, you know, sound systems, we've been donating it to local schools in the region. So that's also, of course, you know, because uh we we buy so many things for events. So instead of bringing them, and it's also we would have to bring them to Istanbul tour depots, which doesn't make sense anyways. So that's also been um we've been very careful in what we buy so that and clients are very open to it. If we tell them, like, let's not buy this, but buy this instead so we can actually donate it. They've loved that proactivity, and they they've been very open to those kinds of ideas.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I love that. Our um, I mean, you're right, sustainability is great and important, but we also love doing community service, and this is a way to do it in a really unique way. Every time I go on trips, I always wish I could go in people's houses and just see how they lived. And so for you to create that experience where you're really bringing people to a community that they'd never have the opportunity to go to and learn how they how they live and how um they preserve food and things like that, that's gotta be really fascinating for your customers. Um, but I agree.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we we're such tourists when we travel as well. Like going, we're constantly trying to break the mold, you know, go to the small shops, go to where tourists are not visiting, but it's not always easy. Like you go to a big city, how do you not become a tourist? I I honestly don't know. Well, that's where I can um advertise for DMCs around the world, which will help you do that.
SPEAKER_00Well, you're absolutely right. So I actually really was curious because it sounds like you're kind of you're operating all over Turkey in and every region. But where are you guys based? Are you just in Istanbul or do you have offices all over?
SPEAKER_01Um, we're based in Istanbul and we have teams and offices around Turkey, which actually people Don't realize Turkey is the largest population and land in Europe, country in Europe. Ukraine has a bigger land, but that's it. And so it's a very big country. And we also do some operations in Azerbaijan, which is a Turkish sister company, uh company, yeah, country. And and yeah, so those two countries are our focus. And we do, as I said, like we do um leisure, corporate events, some SMM projects. So we do all kinds, which also helps us leverage different parts of our business to support communities, as I said, like because our corporate groups don't always go to a specific region, but our tour groups will. So we use both sides to complement each other and last make a longer lasting effect.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very, very good. So what is next? Do you have any new destinations you're eyeing, new trips that you're thinking about?
SPEAKER_01My and and honestly, I will give a very honest answer. I have not found the solution to this, but the problem I'd love to address is there are a lot of these very beautiful villages um in the western parts of Turkey, especially all over, but especially in the west, in very popular tourist destinations. You go a bit inland and there's, but they are shedding all of their youth to the bigger cities, like everywhere in the world, you know, urbanization is a big, and our cities have become really overcrowded. So, and people, and it's very expensive, life quality is not that good. I would love for because we work with such esteemed companies, you know, we work with consulting companies, law companies, finance companies. I love a way of finding a you know, building a bridge between the knowledge that our clients have, maybe in like a half day or a um something like that, where we can train that village to make money off what they have, which is just like you said, welcome people to your home, sell your local products, make corporate gifts. I don't know, like create a business model almost for these villages, which, and I've pitched this a few times to some clients, but I I it it must be my fault. I haven't been able to create the magic formula yet for this. But I'd love to harness that you know, our clients come in with such wealth of knowledge. You know, there's villages that grow this specific type of uh wild thyme, and we have clients that come in just to um use that in their incest um uh incense businesses. So, you know, there's things like that that are that I would love to like be the bridge of to support those villages to really retain their younger people, because that's a problem all over the world, right? Countryside is losing its its bright people and cities are overcrowded.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a really good idea. You're right. It that's a tricky one because especially if you have corporate clients, they're wanting to conduct their own business or their team building. But I mean, there's definitely legs there because there are people that have that entrepreneurial spirit, you know, that that will be on these tours that have got to be able to see the potential. So yeah, that's I'll let you know when I figure it out. You're gonna figure that out. That's that's a good idea. You just uh yeah, it's some there's definitely something there. Maybe someone listening will uh will have an idea, yes. Please. Yeah, yeah. Very, very good. Last question for you today. For anyone listening, what would you say is the one thing you really want them to learn from all the information that you've shared with us?
SPEAKER_01I think I would like to say that any event, big or small, you know, two people visiting, 10,000 people, Congress, there is a small impact you can make. And however tiny it is, if everybody did, it's like voting, you know, like every little bit counts. I wish that people would stop looking at like, what am I gonna change? No, you can absolutely make an impact, at least on a few people's lives. So um, I'm not a perfectionist by nature. I like, you know, for me, life is one is bigger than zero. So that's that's my personal recommendation is to, you know, next time you plan an incentive or a meeting, what's even the tiniest way I can leave this place, tiniest bit better, is and sometimes the impact might be massive and sometimes it might be small. But as long as people have that travel is growing around the world for all reasons, but so is the carbon footprint of all of it. So anything we can do to help will make tourism, um, which is an industry that we all love, more uh sustainable for the future.
SPEAKER_00I think that's great advice. I think anyone listening that's working with a destination management company should definitely ask that question. We should be impacting the destinations in a positive way. Really good advice. Ada, thank you so much for joining me today. This was so fascinating. All the things you're doing, you should be so proud. You are well deserving of that news report from the BBC and all the praise that you've received. Really, really fantastic work. I congratulate you and your team, and uh really appreciate you sharing your stories with us about the communities that you're impacting and how you can make these events really special for attendees as well, the business of things. So uh thank you very much for sharing your story. I hope it inspires other people to do things like you, and we will keep an eye on MEPTOR and all the amazing things that you have coming up. Thank you so much, Ada. Thank you so much for having me. That's all the time we have for today. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe to our podcast or leave a review. We have lots of great content in the coming months. Thanks for listening. I'm Jenna Baker for Meetings Matter Chatter.