just interested to know how you say the £ is usually a lot stronger against the lira in the winter, i dont fully agree as we go to turkey in the winter months and i have a turkish bank account where i monitor the exchange rate to exchange my £'s into lira if the rate is good so i can get the high interest rate thats offered for lira,and last winter it never was that good an exchange rate ,although better than what it is now,so i had to keep my money in sterling at a low interest rate, when we were there in end of oct 08 the rate was around 2.45 to 2.5 approx yet in aug 08 it was only 2.07. it has been fluctuating a lot this year as the £ is weak. i exchanged in aug 07 at 2.59 it then dropped quite a lot so i exchanged back to sterling in oct 07 to make a few £'s, then i waited for it to go near 2.59 and that never happened the whole winter it stayed lower than the summer !!
my mother lives near marmaris and she watches the prices increase around end of april by a good margin, shes not happy they do this, also turkish people get cheaper rates a lot of the time for various things too

Things are always cheaper in the winter because there aren't so many tourists, when I lived in Bodrum everything was cheaper; rent, food, drink, clothes, I'm sure they even used to put the bus fare up in summer too.

I have to say I agree with Ellie meg that the rate never changed during winter when I was there though, it did go up and down a bit but not in line with summer or winter.

There is a good deal on Thomsons website for May 5th from Doncaster Sheffield airport to the Devamli Hotel in Icmeler for £274 for 2 weeks B&B.Half board is only £84 extra,worth it considering you get to eat in the Loveboat restaurant every night!.
If it was from Teeside or Newcastle I would book it.

I've just had a quick look at On the Beach for a june/july holiday in Icmeler.

Our holiday choice price has dropped by about £110 per couple (self catering) since mid december (£400 now as against £510 in mid december).

My issue now is whether to book that or wait for a last minute deal???

Dave

I usually wait until about 2-3 weeks before I go but with the Euro zone becoming less popular I am considering booking this week,as I dont want to take the chance of not getting a holiday.The hotel we went to on a late deal in October is now the same price we paid for the 2 weeks in May that I want to go.
I was told by a travel agent that between Christmas and New year was a good time for better deals.

I kno what you mean Dave, the flights I was looking at were around £400 pp but now I have seen them for £250, this is in July so I think maybe I should book now but what if they drop further? Or if I wait and miss out then end up paying more for a different flight.... Things used to be so simple

Was speaking with my mate over the weekend who is a travel agent and he said that bookings to turkey have gone up by 30% but cos turkey is suffering from the crunch just like everywhere else they are increasing their prices for next year to make up for the loss they had this year.
So even if you get a better exchange rate on the lira than on the euro you will end up spending just as much if not more cos the prices will rocket in turkey to claw back the losses of this year. restraunts and bars are gonna hike up the prices well high. He knows this cos all the tourist businesses, hotels, bars, clubs, cafes, restraunts owners and managers get together in the winter to discuss what prices they will charge in the summer, they sort of scratch each others backs by keeping prices at the same level if that makes sense
The best places to go for true value for money is Egypt Goa and Bulgaria. they are much much cheaper and you get more for your dosh.

Unfortunately, Groovybaby, none of the places you listed are a short boat trip to Rhodes - which is where we will be going to an open air rock concert on the 19th and 20th of June.

This year, instead of spending the two weeks on Rhodes we have decided to go somewhere we haven't been before, nip over on the ferry for the weekend of the concert, then back again. Turkey is really the only place where that is feasible.

Dave

Fortunately Tutor22 not everyone going on holiday wants to spend 2 days of it at an open air rock concert. Some people would prefer to see the Pyramids and you can't see them in Rhodes or Turkey either. I was talking about prices and value, not where rock concerts are being held this year.
Hope you have a groovy time all the same.

This is the Turkey forum, which is why Dave was talking about Turkey and not Egypt. I'm sure anyone interested in going to see the pyramids would be on the Egypt forum wouldn't they ?

Egypt is not as good value as it used to be as Thomas Cook are offering 6.50LE to the pound today!
Give me Turkey any time regardless of how much the prices go up.

I think Turkey is still great value.

I have just returned from Benidorm, and the prices are now on par with the UK. For a wine and soda, and a malibu and coke was costing us on average of 10 quid. For that in turkey you could go to some restraunts and have a meal for 2 for that.

Still the place for me. I hope more people do go there, but I hope it will be the right people, and not your usual drunken brits that have given certain parts of spain a bad name.

Steve

Totally agree Steve.We were there in October and the Jasmine restaurant had meals for 2 for £9. Efes was 1TL in Venice on the canal,which was 37p with the exchange rate we got with our Nationwide Flex card.
I just hope it doesnt change for the worse,but I only go early and late season so hopefully wont meet the drunken Brit brigade

I've just booked for June for 2 weeks. 7th June till 22,can't wait.

Staying in the Kurt Apartments, stayed there in June and they were great for the price.

Steve

It's not just the exchange rates that make Turkey a good place to go. Yes, flights cost more to Turkey than say Spain/Balearics, but they are twice as long. Accommodation there is a lot cheaper than in Spain for a similar property. Your "spending money" goes further too. But the thing about Turkey is that it's different. There's a lot more to it than just the beach eg Ephesus, Pamukkale, Saklikent Gorge etc. So it's a wonderful place to go if you want to do some sightseeing too. Try going to Istanbul first for a few days, before moving on to the beach resorts.

Thomas Cook are massively increasing their presence in Turkey this year, in anticipation of the boom in tourists shunning the Eurozone. I've never been interested in Turkey, but having just come back from Tenerife and spent far more than I was hoping, I'm looking into going to Turkey myself.

with the possibility of the turkish people increasing there prices as mentioned would it not be a good idea to go AI
that is what we have booked this year instead of our usual cyprus
we got a thomson premier package for the same as we pay b&b in cyprus so a saving of 50% for us
same sort of weather nice people the hotel we have booked has good reviews and my parents and my sister went there last year
we are going to give it a go last time we went was icmiler in 1997

The problem is if everyone starts going AI then the bars and restaurants will put their prices up even more.

Up until a couple of years ago AI were large, 5 star hotels either completely out of resort or on the outskirts. Offering a good standard of food and loads of entertainment these places are like mini resorts of their own. People who visited these hotels didn't make too much of a contribution to the local economy as they stayed within the hotel complex. However in the last few years more and more cheap AI hotels are springing up, these are very often hotels which previously offered b&b or half board but now have changed to AI instead. You can get very good deals to these places but the food can be mediocre, bland and very repetitive and the drinks are often watered down and only available up until a certain time at night. Becuase these hotels are in resort and previously people staying in them would go out to eat in the resort the local restaurants and bars are losing custom, so in order to make a profit they therefore put up their prices. People then report back that Turkey is no longer as cheap as it was and others decide that AI may be a better option and so the story goes on. Obviously I am only talking about tourist restaurants, local restaurants are still as cheap as they have always been to eat at but the majority of vititors only eat in the tourist restaurants.

If you are considering going AI beware of these very cheap deals, do a bit of research first as you may not be getting the bargain you thought you were and if you are not budgetting for eating out you could be stuck eating boring, low quality food and drinking watered down beer for two weeks. If something sounds too good to be true it probably is, you will only get what you pay for.

Anyway going back to the origainal question I read in the paper yesterday that bookings are up by 20% to Turkey for 2009 so it looks like more people are going this year and if more people eat out in the resort restaurants we may not see as many price increases. They only put the prices up when they are losing custom.

It also said that there are less packages available this year so there wont be as many late deals so if people are wanting to go, best get booking soon
Kedi

it is almost 4000-00 AI so still a fair bit if money
we have looked into where we are going and when i say it is cheap i mean as in cheaper than where we normally go by 50%
my parents and my sister stayed there last year and have highly recomended it as have all the people who written reviews