Faith Tourism From Ghana To Turkey Launched

The Helgard Travel and Tours in partnership with the Embassy of Turkey has successfully launched the faith tour of the biblical book of the Revelations Chapters one and two to Turkey.

Madam Nesrin Bayazit, Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey said most Ghanaians do not know Turkey so well, and the idea for the tourism is to make more people go and visit, know the history of Christianity in Turkey and make business.

She said since 1992, Turkey having a Christian minority has been working on religious tourism and has designated some places for such purposes.

She said Turkey was situated at the meeting point of Asia and Europe. Asian side is called Anatolia and European side is called Thrace and both sides had been cradles of many cultures and civilizations throughout the centuries.

Madam Bayazit said Turkey had more investment in Ghana and their investment were over half a billion dollars and since they had been in Ghana for a short while it’s a huge success for them.

“We have not been long in Ghana, but have been successful and have promising bilateral trade relations and we are doing everything possible to encourage Ghanaian business to promote Ghana in turkey as well and should not be a one way trade, it should be a mutual one.

“Of course trade is in our favour, but we would like to see being more balanced and Ghanaians paying more attention to Turkey. There is interest in Ghana, because Turkish products are of good quality and competitive prizes,” he said.

She said Anatolia has been the home of great cultures and sites from Neolithic, Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman era. Anatolia was also home to the first Christian unities.

Madam Bayazit said each of the civilizations that lived on their soil left them their most valuable sites and artefacts.

She said the sites and artefacts had been transmitted from generation to generation, likewise their homeland had been blessed with major holy sites of the three monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Therefore, Turkey has a rich collection of churches, monasteries, synagogues and mosques.

Since 1993 Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey had been promoting faith tourism and designated the following sites as important places for Christianity: St. Pierre Museum (Hatay), and St. Paul Museum (Tarsus).

The rest are, Church of Virgin Mary (Seleuk),Church of St. Nicholas (Demre), St. Sophia Mosque(12nik), Synagogue of Sardis (Manisa), Church of Alasehir (Manisa), Church of Akhisar (Manisa) and Ancient
City of Pisidia (Isparta), Orthodox Church of Derinkuyu (Nevsehir) and Ancient
City of Laodikya (Denizli).

“Major pilgrimage venues for Christians are in Turkey including the Seven Churches of the Book of Revelations of John, along with underground cities, chapels, rock churches in the caves clustered mainly in Cappadocia, Central Turkey,” she said.

She expressed the hope that more Ghanaians would visit Turkey, as pleasure also connects people from different cultures, countries and civilization.

Helgard Travel and Tours offers the most comprehensive travel and tours services at the most competitive prices, from visa facilitation, ticket reservations to hotel bookings and ensures that each client was well taken of.

Helgard tours is also in partnership with Botswana Consulate to organise ‘Best of Botswana’ to showcase the best parts of Botswana to Ghana including; trade, mining, agriculture, financial sector, private sector development and foreign investments.

GNA