Tureb Information

TUREB is the national federation, which was formed with a Protocol of Cooperation and Coordination among Professional Organizations of Turkish Tourist Guides. It consists of tourist guide guilds and associations with more than 5-6 thousand members from all over Turkey. The head office of TUREB is in the same place as IRO's. TUREB was founded by considering the problem of formation of shared opinion and representation caused by the fact that the professional organizations of Turkish tourist guides are gathered under different identities and associations, and accepting that tourist guides must gather under a uniform organization, tourist guiding must be recognized as a "profession", a Bill of Law concerning the profession and organization of tourist guides must be passed in order to solve the above mentioned problems, and coordination must be established among the existing professional organizations so that the ongoing administrative and professional endeavours concerning the profession and organization of tourist guides reach a successful conclusion, the shared problems of tourist guides are identified, and suggestions for solution are generated. We have become a member of the FEG and the WFTGA. By using our relations with other countries, we are planning to improve our regulations in Turkey. IRO is Istanbul Tourist Guides' Guild founded under the Turkish Laws for the tourist guides living in Istanbul. Today, IRO is the oldest and largest tourist guide organisation in Turkey. With almost 3000 members it is a very strong professional organisation. In our Istanbul office we have 9 employees working for both IRO and TUREB on salary. Some are public relations experts, secretaries and some are web publishers, technicians etc. We have rented and restored the third and fourth floors of a beautiful 19th century building right in the center of Istanbul and it is only 5 minutes walk to the Taksim Square. The third floor is IRO/TUREB office floor and conference-exhibition hall. We have decorated the 4th floor as a café-bar and restaurant for our member guides. It has been active since January 2005 as a Tourist Guides' Club, named ROL, with a seating capacity of 60-70 people. TUREV is the Tourist Guides' Foundation founded by 108 trustees. It has been established in order to prepare social, cultural and economical activities for Turkish tourist guides, to enhance professional solidarity, and work towards increasing the importance and respectability of this sector in the Turkish economy, and putting its tourism potential into practice. Although it was founded by 108 people, its constitution was prepared in a way that it will cover all of the tourist guides in Turkey. Last few years our foundation applied for some international funds for our "Children and Museums" project. In this project, tourist guides, who have had training in pedagogy, drama and first aid, are taking elementary school children to museums and archaeological sites free of charge so that children can be aware of the historical richness of the lands they live on. Our application was accepted and we got 45 thousand US Dollars for this project and we dealt with 4800 children. We are trying to continue our project, and get more and more extensive throughout Turkey in the following years. We accept donations from professional tourist guides and give scholarships to the children of our deceased colleagues.