Born on Bodrum’s harbor side, Galip Gür’s life is interwoven with the growth of tourism in the region, and he remains working at the heart of it.

Galip Gür was sitting at his hotel office desk while well-trained staff move around his hotel’s reception area, already busy catering to a “good number” of independent travelers staying at the marina end of Bodrum’s inner harbor.

One point of view is that Gür has not moved far from where he was born: the actual building he was born in can be seen from the hotel on the opposite side of the harbor. Yet in terms of outlook and the miles he has traveled in his still young life, he has gone a long way – just as Bodrum has in its growth from the lost little village run through fishing and sponge diving on the edge of the Aegean to an international resort, all in the last 50 years.

Gür’s life is based on actively promoting the attractions of Bodrum, yet at the same time offering the lessons learned from Bodrum’s development to other newly “discovered” beauty spots around the world.

At his desk he has the photos and souvenirs from his latest trip outside Turkey, to the Philippines, where as a committee member and president-elect of the international organization “The Most Beautiful Bays of the World,” he went to support one of the newest club members, the municipality of the Bay of Puerto Galera on one of the Philippines‘ larger islands, Mindoro Island. It was the Island’s first time to hold a festival of arts – the Malasimbo music and art festival took place in February. He also went to advise the area’s administrators on how to grow tourism without damaging the natural attractions of the area.

Gür said of the organization, The Most Beautiful Bays of the World, “It is a great name.” He revealed how deeply committed he is to the aims of the organization and how that has grown out of his life and experiences in Bodrum.

Of the organization, he said, “The main and most important role is education. We care about the environment but we are different from, for example Greenpeace who have an essential role. They protest; they fight for the environment. So do we, but we are mainly on the side of education. We are sharing our experiences.”

He said he was impressed by the Philippines Bay of Porto Galera. “It is very natural, very beautiful. They have a lot of demand from big companies and pressure to build hotels there. Of course, if you are a beautiful place, you will get the pressure to develop.” He compared Porto Galera to Bodrum 30 or 40 years ago, “It was beautiful, a natural delightful place.” And mourned the past, “No one told us tourism development could harm the area.” He went on to warn others, “It proves that if you are not careful and if you don’t keep the balance, you can lose it.”

With that experience behind him and as a representative of many bay areas who try to balance development and the environment, on his visit in the Philippines, Gür briefed the municipal staff at the invitation of the mayor of Porto Galera. He also had a long discussion with Mayor Hubbert Christopher Dolor, and Alberto Aldaba, Philippines secretary of tourism.

Gür said they were proud that their Island was natural and unique, with many elements not seen elsewhere, such as specific types of coral, coconut forests, no chain hotels and no chain retail shops – just everything local. Mainly because it was a long way from anywhere, it has not been overrun.

“So I told them,” Gür said, “development doesn’t equal having hotels for everyone.” He was delivering the message of high-quality tourism where people of one social style, and travelers who prefer smaller but higher quality areas who avoid developed resorts. He was struck by the lovely discrete wooden houses and urged them to adopt that as a style for building, not to use concrete or metal.

“They have a lovely port, but some real terrible shanty-style shops.” He said, “I urged them to replace them – not with a modern shopping mall, but with traditional wooden cafes, shops selling local traditional items.” Gür said the mayor listened carefully and they were still in touch, exchanging information by e-mail.

“They are so proud to be a part of the ‘Most Beautiful Bays of the World,’ and they are lucky to have this expertise available to them. Some bays have had terrible experiences.”

The bridge

Gür believed his position was as “a bridge” between local administration and governments. When he will take up the elected position of president of the worldwide association in September, he will no longer be a delegate but Bodrum and therefore Turkey will have an opportunity of having another delegate to join the committee and work. He was scathing about people who ask, “What will this organization do for Bodrum?”

He said it needed to be understood that it was a platform for people to organize from, not to be sitting back waiting for gifts to rain down on them. “They should be asking what they can do for it.” A platform is needed he said as a lot of people in Bodrum care for nature. “But they don’t want to go on streets and shout so we need different platforms. Our aim is to change people’s minds.”

We are “not bad” he said. “Bodrum doesn’t have industrial pollution. Our only problems are sewage and construction.” However, he does fear the effects of increasing development, particularly in relation to a proposed hotel development in the bay of Kissebükü along the coast; the first stop for many “blue voyage” boat cruises out of Bodrum.

He felt that groups must bring the decision-makers to the bays and force them to see and consider the environmental questions of their decisions. “I am so upset: Look around you I say. They think nothing happens there. They say they are making it beautiful. What are they talking about? It is already beautiful!”

Start of home lodging in early 1960s 

Galip Gür was born in the Ministry of Health building that still stands on Bodrum Harbor and still deals with incoming boats and traffic. Gür’s father was a ministry official who when travelers started to come to Bodrum had to persuade the local homeowners to accept some small payment for opening their homes to them. Such was the tradition of hospitality in the early 1960s. Gür Senior bought land and then went on to build a hotel on the present site of their current family hotel. “We had permission for building a five-story hotel, but we never did that,” Galip Gür said. “We were content to build low white-washed blocks of apartments, and be the first apartment hotel in Bodrum.” At that time, in the late 70s, another hotel did build five stories before the 1979 by-law that prohibited buildings over two stories.

The Most Beautiful Bays of the World

The organization named the Most Beautiful Bays of the World started as an informal club in March 1997. Bodrum was invited to be part of the group and Gür was nominated to represent Bodrum Municipality. It became a formal organization as it grew more internationally and increased the membership from local administrations of many small bays of the world. The concept of bays was chosen because it is at bays where seas and land and human settlement meet and so often where pressures of development clash with the ecology, history and flora and fauna of the area. Bodrum is the only Turkish member of the group; it has fellow members from some outstanding locations both urbanized, such as San Francisco Bay and remote, such as The Bay of Puerto Galera in the Philippines. There is also Mont St-Michel Bay and Somme Bay in France; the Backwaters of Kerala, India; Peninsula Valdes, Patagonia, Argentina and the remarkable Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.

www.world-bays.com

Bodrum, or ancient Halicarnassus, has 5,000 years of history, but those who enjoy the sea and the sun in today’s Bodrum have very little knowledge of the town’s history.

Looking at the old, mostly black and white, photographs of Bodrum makes one wonder, “How did this small town turn into a world-renowned holiday resort?”

The photographs have recently been released following over two years of work. They were lying silently in dusty archives, the chests of the elderly and the city library on the Greek island of Cos until a Doğan news agency reporter brought them back into daylight.

Bodrum Mayor Mehmet Kocadon, a member of the Democrat Party, or DP, said every person has his or her own perception. “The old Bodrum is a personal thing for every person; it is the first day he or she sees Bodrum,” said Kocadon. “What one thinks of the town if they saw it in the 1970s is much different than another one who first came here in the ’90s.”

The mayor said many people have similar things in mind when missing the old Bodrum. “It is the quietness, calmness, the wild greenery, the deep blue sea that seems to be endless, a musty café visited for a cup of tea, the stone houses, or a traditional wedding ceremony in a village. We will not forget these, and we will not let them be forgotten.”

Galip Gür, vice president of the Union of the World’s Most Beautiful Coves, noted that Bodrum discovered tourism in the 1950s, but the town’s lack of precautions has caused problems to grow in time, leading to the town’s struggle today.

Bodrum is a unique place in Turkey and in the world for its natural beauties, added Gür.

“The people who used to make a getaway from the city to come to Bodrum for its nature, beauty, simplicity and its unique social structure are long gone,” said Gür. “Bodrum is losing its town spirit of the 1960s; it is turning into a mini Istanbul.”

Gür said it was wrong to try to solve the town’s problems with examples from the big cities. “The same mentality that once turned a church into a public education center now argues that the building must be renovated as a church again,” said Gür. “Those who sat silently as shopping centers and supermarket chains were coming to Bodrum now oppose them.”

Despite all his pessimism, Gür thinks there can still be hope for the town. “We should not let Bodrum entirely lose its soul as a small town,” said Gür. “We should not act with the paranoia of a metropolis; we can only preserve Bodrum for the future generations if we focus on its properties that reflect both the Aegean and the Mediterranean cultures.”

Bodrum Mayor Kocadon noted that the biggest blow to the town was the “summerhouses boom” in the early 1980s, followed by the construction of huge five-star hotels. “It was around the same time the locals met the problems waiting ahead,” said Kocadon. “The tourists to Bodrum did not even come to the town center because they were here for the nature in the first place.”

Kocadon said, instead of commemorating the past in black and white photos, Bodrum must blend the old and the new to preserve the town’s unique structure.