Seeing a gap in the market between the free or volume villa rental sites and the niche travel agencies a group of independent luxury villa owners on the Bozburun Peninsula have created a new ‘Luxury Villas Turkey’ brand, aimed primarily at the luxury British travel market. Its aim is to promote the Bozburun Peninsula as a high quality destination and offer the luxury villa holidays on the peninsula directly to guests.

According to John Cummins, the founder of this initiative. “Guests have expressed their frustration at having such a limited choice of villas on the Bozburun Peninsula, and for our part it is hard to get visibility on the large villa web sites as now there is a large amount of cheap villas swamping these sites, making them more like bazaars. This is our opportunity to promote the area and the best independent luxury villas as an alternative for guests”.

The group claim the advantage of booking directly with these independent luxury villas is that guests experience a more authentic rural Turkey experience as the owners are well connected in the villages, so guests are supporting sustainable tourism in the villages, providing employment and opportunities in the community. For example in the luxury villas featured on the site in the village of Orhaniye, all of the furniture was hand made in the village workshops and the villas were largely constructed using craftsmen from the village, with the support team living in the village.

To maintain the highest levels of quality, only villas that have been personally inspected and approved by the founder as offering a luxury holiday experience, with the villa constructed to the latest Turkish building standards are permitted to join this group.

The group has also linked up with the gulet owners of Bozburun to offer combined luxury villa and cruise holidays. Gulets are traditional wooden yachts and are made by hand locally in Bozburun, so are a good fit for the sustainable tourism values of this initiative.

To view the available independent luxury villas on the Bozburun Peninsula, please browse the web site at http://www.luxuryvillasturkey.com.

About Luxury Villas Turkey:

Luxury Villas Turkey is a new initiative, formed by luxury villa owners on the Bozburun Peninsula to promote the area as a quality destination to the luxury British travel market. John Cummins is founder of Luxury Villas Turkey and can be contacted on +44 7767 473057 or john@luxuryvillasturkey.com.

On june 3, around 100 Russian sailors arrived in many sailboats. They had reserved dinner beforehand at Osmans place and  the neighbouring restaurant in the harbor. I have never seen this many boats and this many people in the harbor, except for during the village festival. The road along the quay had been closed for traffic and the whole area in front of the restaurants where filled with dinner tables. There was a genuine party-feeling and some of the Russian guests performed a very interesting kind of sing-and-dance performance. A pity that we could not understand what they were singing, though.

There was a very nice opening ceremony with many locals, officials, politicians and Gulet owners.

Among the distiguished guest, our local reporter Atila recognised the Mayor of Symi island.

The Mayor of Symi also was invited to Selimiye for lunch.  We are happy that our greek guests had the opportunity to visit the two most beautiful villages on the peninsula.

Everybody are now very happy as this most probably will boost tourism and the number of yachts visiting Bozburun, since the village now is an official port of entry/exit.

Rumours has it that there will be a regular boat service between Symi and Bozburun every Tuesday, making it possible for Greek citizens and tourists at Symi to visit the weekly market in Bozburun.

Photos of the celebration can be seen at the SymiGreece blog: http://www.symigreece.com/page/1124.htm

Sanna and Calle

Lodos is shut down and his new place Pirates Cove, north of the harbour and close to the beach, is a very nice place where you can eat, drink, enjoy live music some nights but always with good music playing. One can order food but also bring meat etc to grill on your own. They serve home-made bratwurst and chilli-wurst, which are delicious.

We think this will be a very good place to chill out at

Sanna and Calle

In a bid to help guests to the Bozburun Peninsula find accommodation in Bozburun itself rather than Marmaris, the tourist businesses in Bozburun have created a community web site at www.bozburuninfo.com . It enables guests to quickly view and select the range of quality holiday accommodation available in Bozburun and the surroundings. This ranges from simple bed and breakfast houses, to boutique hotels, private gulet cruises, to luxury Turkish villas with private pools. Guests looking for a fabulous private gulet cruise or mixed cruise/villa holiday will save money by dealing directly with the owners.

Many guests do not realize that when they book a tourist gulet cruise through a travel agent, the agency takes a large part of your money so the actual owner has to cut costs on the cruise, which is not good for your experience or the owner himself. By booking direct you are sure to get pampered by the crew and enjoy an unforgettable holiday sailing the local waters, which are considered the finest in the Mediterranean.

This site also features some luxurious Turkish Villas that are considered the finest on the Bozburun Peninsula. They have been constructed as village projects, with most of the craftsmen living locally, so your holiday provides sustainable income for the local villages.

This will be a big boost to Bozburun tourism as cruises will now enter and leave Turkey via Bozburun. Gulet cruises starting in Selimiye and Orhaniye heading to the Greek islands can now directly clear Customs at Bozburun, avoiding the previous long detour to Datca Customs down the Datca peninsula.

A gulet in the harbour