Minister of People’s for Tourism and Foreign Trade Felix Plasencia held a meeting via video conference on Tuesday, June 9, with Turkish Vice-minister of Tourism Ozgul Ozkan and Ambassador to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Şevki Mütevellioğlu as part of the agreements reached at the last General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in September 2019, held in St. Petersburg, Russia, in order to strengthen strategic and cooperation alliances in tourism in a post-pandemic world.
In the meeting, they exchanged experiences in handling the COVID-19 pandemic in Venezuela and Turkey, and they agreed to hold a new video conference for Vice-minister Ozkan to outline the sanitary protocols of the Turkish people and their advantages for Venezuelan tour operators in order to implement similar measures, which have been successful in the Eurasian country, where tourism represented 10% of GDP with more than 50 million tourists in 2019.
Bilateral Strategic Cooperation
Amid the pandemic and under the principles of the Diplomacy of Peace fostered by President Nicolás Maduro, the Bolivarian Government has strengthened strategic alliances between Venezuelan and Turkey, including the development of different areas of common interests.
In this regard, the Bolivarian Government is boosting tourism as part of the Bolivarian Economic Agenda to consolidate the growth of tourism throughout Venezuela and guarantee the well-being of the Venezuelan people.
Turkey and Venezuela will celebrate the 70th anniversary of their bilateral relations in December. These fraternal ties were strengthened as Hugo Chávez, leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, took office, and today, President Nicolás Maduro continues strengthening these ties under a multicentric, multipolar policy for the development of countries and their people, respect for sovereignty and foreign non-intervention.