Icmeler Online Holiday Forum & Reviews - Turkey

As the summer tourism season begins in Turkey, a story circulated in the Russian media claims Turkey is shutting down its beaches due to a large number of sharks in the Mediterranean waters off its southern coastline

The tale's source is misinformation reported by the Turkey correspondent for Russia's Radio Freedom. According to the false report, sharks recently appeared near Turkish beaches for the first time in 30 years, prompting authorities to issue swim bans for most of the southern and Aegean coast. The most-read articles on many Russian Web sites bore headlines like, "Turkey in panic, Aegean coasts under shark attack!" More than 100 major Russian-language news sites circulated the story.

The true story that the shark attack reports seem to have been based on -- however loosely -- was a decision to declare a small bay in the Gökova region off-limits for swimming to protect beach sharks in the area. The sharks do not pose a threat to humans.

The damage has already been done, though, according to Turkey's tourism agencies. Russia sends more tourists to Turkey's southern coasts, particularly to Antalya, than any other country.

A similar tall tale, aired on Russia's ORT television channel about a month ago, decreased business for two Turkish construction companies -- GAMA and Enka, two companies highly respected domestically and internationally -- alleging they aided the separatist movement in Chechnya in 1994.

The allegations had negative effects for all Turkish companies operating in Russia. Enka encountered major problems in obtaining visas for its workers from Turkey after the story circulated in Russian media. "Even shopkeepers began questioning our employees around the areas they live after the news story," said Firuz Hatunoğlu of GAMA. "We have 4,500 employees here. We operate in many regions of Russia. This slander has badly hurt [our business]."

İsmail Koçak, head of the Koçak construction company, said that in Russia it was possible and easy for a business to "order" a news story to hurt the competition. However he said it was difficult to put an end to such stories, because "we don't know their source."

Boncuk Bay is the only spot in the Mediterranean and the second in the world for proliferation of sandbar sharks that do not pose any danger to humans. Foreign tourists who come to the bay now have to change their destination to neighboring resort towns simply because they cannot enter the bay.

They visit in June to lay there eggs