The Travel Foundation

Taste of Fethiye

Launched in 2010, this five year project sees collaboration between Travel Foundation, Co-operative Travel, Thomson, First Choice and Thomas Cook.

The project was developed primarily to assist farmers in the Fethiye area of Turkey, to improve the benefits they gain from tourism and to encourage good farming practise.

Project aims include:

• Helping hotels in the Fethiye region buy produce from local farmers.
• Helping local farmers to better understand the needs of hotels, and plan their production cycles accordingly, and help them to market their goods successfully.

So far...

A series of workshops have been run for farmers in the region, including advice on planning, collaboration of production and marketing to reduce waste and reduce costs. Farmers will also be given some written production guidelines, which are currently in development.

A Taste of Fethiye Logo has been developed (above) to help raise awareness of the fantastic local produce on offer in the region. An English language version has been developed to help promote local produce to holidaymakers, and a Turkish version has been developed so that farmers can promote their produce to hoteliers.

Several hotels have held 'local food events' to promote 'home grown' produce, which in turn will help support the local community and raise customer awareness to the fresh fruit and vegetable produce available. The events were well received by hoteliers, producers and the holidaymakers.