Bringing tourists closer to local produce

To kick-start the project and help farmers to improve their produce, the Travel Foundation ran a series of workshops for 40 local farming families in 2011, offering advice on how to market the fruit and vegetables to hotels and tourism businesses, while also giving guidance on how to increase yields.

Turning to local wholesalers, the Travel Foundation set up production agreements with farmers and purchasing agreements with hotels.

A Taste of Fethiye label was also created, allowing hotels to verify the local origins of the produce and promote it to their guests.

Tour operator resort teams and hotel staff then got involved by putting on “Local Food Nights” for guests to try Taste of Fethiye food.

Jo Hendrickx, former sustainable destinations manager at Thomas Cook, praised the events for helping raise awareness among customers and staff.

“Our staff really enjoyed being part of the Taste of Fethiye evenings in the hotels. It’s important that customers have the opportunity to understand that by choosing hotels stocking local produce they’re having a positive influence on that local economy.”

In 2015, 1,000 Tui customers went on an agricultural excursion to visit a Taste of Fethiye farm to learn about the origins of their food, while providing extra revenue for the farmer.

There were inevitable bumps in the road for the project, and Felton admits that liaising with hoteliers proved tricky. “We had to continually engage with hotels, particularly when there was high staff turnover and those championing the project moved on,” she points out. “We also spent a lot of time getting the pricing right so that it was competitive for hoteliers.”

Despite the challenges, the project can count myriad successes. For farmers, the educational programme saw the vast majority changing their practices to lower levels of pesticides and fertiliser used and to reduce waste. “The changes have seen farmers’ yields increasing by an average of 30%, while their revenue increased by around 24% between 2012 and 2014,” affirms Felton.

“Plus as a result of the project, 24 hotels have purchased Taste of Fethiye produce, and in 2015, 16 hotels sourced between 70% and 85% of their entire fresh fruit and vegetable requirements via the programme,” she adds.

Sedat Cavdar, manager of Montana Pine Resort, which has been involved with the project from the beginning, says he is “very happy with the results,” adding that his guests are keenly
interested in the project.

Buying local also reduces food miles and CO2 emissions, so has helped some hotels to meet their sustainability requirements. Hotel guests have looked on the project favourably, too, says Felton, with 62% of them stating they felt more positive towards their hotel knowing that it purchased locally grown products.

Fethiye wholesaler Senay Coskun is also enthusiastic about the project: “Taste of Fethiye has helped us to reach more hotels, ones that are more responsible and care about nature. For us, [the project] has been a great marketing tool and in terms of business, a success.”

Since the project is self-funding, it will continue to be rolled out long term by Fetav, which will take over the marketing and coordination.

All of the 16 hotels that purchased Taste of Fethiye produce will continue to do so and almost all of the original farmers are still involved.

With the Travel Foundation bowing out of the project, Felton asserts how happy she is with its progress. “It is a credit to my team, to our supporters and especially our partners locally that this initiative has grown into the successes we see today.”

Now the charity is looking ahead to future projects, while gleaning valuable insight from the experience. “We’ve introduced a wholesaler with fair-trade principles for our project in Mexico, a Maya cooperative selling honey-based products to hotels, and we would love to see other businesses seeking to incorporate more local products into their supply chains.”