Turkey Travel Advice

If you're planning to go to Turkey for your holiday this year, you'll want all the right information to make sure that your holiday is a success and one to remember. Whether your destination is one of the popular resorts along the Turkish Riviera, a modern, safe resort like Marmaris, or the capital Istanbul, you'll need to be up to speed on the red tape, bureaucracy and the local customs. You can enjoy your holiday to the Turkish resort of Marmaris or Feithiye when you know what to expect.

Turkey is not in the EU, so you'll need a visa for your trip. But the good news is, visas are available only at the point of entry, so you don't have to do any extra preparation or wait at the Turkish embassy prior to your departure. For British and Irish citizens, the cost of the visa is 10 GBP more information can be found on the Consulate General of Turkey's website. Another important thing to arrange before you leave is travel insurance as the EU rules for healthcare won't apply in Turkey.

Once you're in Turkey, you'll find it a remarkable place with an amazing culture. The Turks are rightly famed for their friendliness. They will go out of their way to make you feel welcome. So if you're stopping off at a tiny shop to ask for directions and buy a soft drink, the owners are likely to offer you incredibly generous hospitality, so much so that they're likely to be out of pocket by the time you leave!

Much of the wonder of Turkey is its difference from Europe. In fact Istanbul City stands on the Bosphorus, the very border between Europe and Asia. But this also means that there are different customs to experience and be aware of. Turkey has a large Muslim population, and so it is good to be aware that you might be travelling there during the holy month of Ramadan, which is in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. In 2010 it began on the 11th August and ended the 9th September, in 2011 it will be from the 1st to the 29th August. If you are travelling to Turkey during this time you may find that tours and attractions will close early in the afternoons but generally businesses, restaurants and hotels will operate as normal in obvious tourist resorts. When visiting mosques or religious shrines, remember to dress modestly, that means no legs, arms or midriffs showing and it is respectful for women to cover their hair. If you do some reading on your Turkey holiday you'll learn more about the culture, history and people of the country your visiting allowing you to truly make the most of your trip to Turkey.

Travel Agencies and the Convenience

The 21st century is a time wherein everything that people want is available over the internet. Life has been customized to take a shape which will make it easy for humans to do even the most cumbersome tasks at the push of a button. Among the most fascinating of these services is that of online travel agencies. Even if a person wants to move from one place to the other, he/she can log-on to any of the numerous online travel agencies and hire a cab, book an airline ticket, buy a cruise permit and loads of other things.

The travel industry is the only one where there are sales all throughout the year. Trains, buses, cars, flight, cruises and all modes of transportation are always under operation. Hence, it can be rightfully said that the availability of travel services being online has been a response to their huge demand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.

The growth of the travel industry has also been very inspiring. The invention of the airplane and car by the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford respectively brought about a revolution in human history. They created a brand new market for the entire world. A service which was highly needed since time immemorial. Since their inception back in the mid 1900s to this date, both the segments have gone from strength to strength and are currently among the world's largest industries. Today, hundreds of brands fight in the market just to grab your attention and make you buy their services and their job is to some extent made easy by travel agencies.

This brings us to the question, why do we need travel agencies? The answer to this question is very simple. They are required because they are in demand. When you intend to travel, it is quite difficult to check the listings of all the airlines and cabs that you can use. Not just can it be confusing but also pretty long and tiresome. To avoid all this hassle for people, these agencies do the job of finding the transport services that best match the customer. With their help, a customer can specify his requirements and get a service nearly tailor-made for him. The customer has the freedom to choose destinations, prices, service provider and also the time when he wants the service to be delivered. Now if all this was to be done manually, the person would have to get the schedules of all the airlines flying to the destination city on a particular date and compare their prices and check which among them would be affordable and available (seats). The same applies with cab services; it would need calling cab drivers one by one to see who can deliver. With the help of travel agencies, you can just make a call or send an email specifying your details and relieve yourself of all this stress. Within no time, you get the results which fit your requirement.

Online travel agencies have been an instant success. With the magnitude at which the world travels, it can only be said that these services are here to stay.

The Secrets of the Best Covering Letters - Tips, Advice and Suggestions

When reading travel industry job applications, I find the covering letter is often treated as an afterthought... a formality only included because convention dictates it should be so. That's actually the wrong way to think about things, and here's why: The CV cover letter is the first thing your contact at the organization will see, and you don't want it to be the last! With potentially hundreds of applications to wade through, every minute counts for these people, and if your covering letter is poorly written, long winded, dull or generic, there's every chance that the CV you spent all night crafting will never actually be read.

Here's some advice on how to write a covering letter that's sure to make them read your CV - which is the very purpose it is supposed to serve!

Make it unique

A common mistake in the cover letter is to use a generic template - either with minor details like the name of the company and industry changed or, worse, a covering letter suited to anyone but tailored to no one. To stand out, you have to make the effort of targeting your CV cover letter to the job you're interested in. With that in mind, there are some aspects you should make sure you know before you put pen to paper on your covering letter:

There are three things you should know before you begin:

All about the company

If you can drop some details about the company into the CV cover letter, you're making it clear that you're serious about the job and have made an effort in your application. It'll also prove invaluable when you get to interview to be feel comfortable talking about the company's values and history - you may not need it, but if the chance comes up to discuss your homework without feeling forced, then it can't hurt.

All about the job

Make sure you know that job description inside out! It'll list the kind of qualities, experience and qualifications you will need, and it is important to ensure all the points are covered in your covering letter.

The name of your contact

Make an effort to find the name of the contact you need. Personally addressed cover letters tend to have a far better chance of being paid attention to than those generic unspecific missives. If you don't know the name of the manager in charge of the department you're looking to work in, then find out - either through industry contacts, or simply a call to their HR department.

How to write a covering letter

There are two important things to bear in mind when it comes to actually writing up your cover letter - if you stick to these two rules you should be fine:

1) Avoid clichéd positive statements ("I feel that my qualifications and experience suit the demands of the role"), and be specific and unique, and

2) the more succinct you can be, the better. Your covering letter should be as brief as possible, while still acting as an enticing bridge between the job and your CV - if you can't fit everything in, don't be afraid to leave them wanting more (but tell them enough to still be interested!)

Bearing those two covering letter tips in mind, the rest is largely up to you. However, as formats go to ensure you can remember every pertinent detail, this is a rather nice layout, and should take you no more than a page:

Dear (Name - remember the CV cover letter should be as personalized as possible)

Paragraph 1 - This should be a very brief introduction informing them of what job you are looking to apply to. It's tempting here to write where you heard about the position, but as this is a) something everybody does and b) not important, it's just the kind of detail that can be sacrificed in aid of brevity!

Paragraph 2 - This is the point in your cover letter that you launch into your sales pitch. Match your qualities and qualifications to the specifics of the position as advertised, in an enthusiastic manner. Explain what qualities you can offer the company, and not what the company can do for you! This is the ideal opportunity to drop in any relevant details you've found while researching the company, but don't force it if it doesn't seem natural.

Paragraph 3 - This is where you should be sealing the deal! 2-4 sentences, tops and with something - a statement or question - which will make the reader want to get in contact with you. You should also include contact details, your availability and an invitation to find out more about you. You should also draw attention to your attached CV, which will give a lot more detail than the covering letter you have just concluded.

One final covering letter tip for when you close: sign it appropriately. A quick refresher course: It's "Yours sincerely" if you know the name of the person involved, and "Yours faithfully" if you do not. If you are mailing a copy, sign it by hand in blue ink, to make it obvious you have taken the time to sign it personally and have not used a photocopy.

There are no hard and fast rules of how to write a covering letter, but it should be the connecting point between your CV and the job you want - it needs to fill in the gaps that your CV cannot reveal on its own. Although my experience is mainly in travel industry jobs, the advice should be universal: keep it brief and make them want to learn more and you should be onto a winner - provided your CV doesn't let you down.