Crowds enjoy Turkish festival despite rain

Sporadic downpours had little effect on this weekend’s Ottawa Turkish Festival.

Outdoor festivals tend to be pretty weather dependent, said Kerim Khan, director of the Canadian Turkish Heritage Foundation, and while 15,000 people were expected over the festival’s three-day run at Confederation Park, they got at least that many in spite of the rain. Attendees who braved the weather were treated to the food, the arts and performances that Turkey is famous for.

The 2006 Census reported 45,000 Turkish-Canadians in Canada, said Hasan Yilmaz, editor-in-chief of CanadaTurk newspaper. Yet Turkish-Canadian events are growing across Canada, taking place in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Kitchener, Edmonton and Hamilton, he said.

The Turkish culture is known for its hospitality to visitors, and the festival was trying to convey that. While the food in general was popular over the weekend, the biggest lineups were at the Turkish coffee tent and for freshly made gozleme.

While Turkish coffee is famous worldwide, people waited more than an hour for gozleme, a Turkish pastry made with a special dough and stuffed with cheese, spinach and potato.

The festival brought out members of the Turkish-Canadian community as volunteers keen to share Turkish culture with other members of the community.

Turkey is seen as ”local” for UK travellers

British holidaymakers are increasingly prepared to travel to Turkey and see it as a ”local” destination, according to one expert.

Head of FX trading at currency exchange company FairFX Rishi Patel noted that the Turkish lira has been very popular recently and Turkey is being used as an alternative to travel in Europe.

He said: “In regards to Turkey, it is still quite a local destination as it were. If you are prepared to travel to Europe, you are definitely going to be prepared to travel to Turkey.

The simplest solution for a typical holiday as an alternative to Europe would be Turkey. Turkish lira was the third most popular foreign currency after the Euro and US dollar in the M&S Money Travel Money Report for the second quarter of 2009.