According to the news of www.turizmhabermerkezi.net, the news source of the tourism sector, Kaan İşçil, the owner of Kappa Tur, who made statements that will shake the agenda on many issues ranging from his share in the establishment of travel zone to the methods by which Barış Öztürk convinced rival companies to work with them, said that Prontotour and Fly Express once stole their personnel unethically.
Stating that he was the senior partner of Travel Zone, how they grew in the market and how they made package tours of many companies, he said: "Thanks to my competitors! They made us grow." Kaan İşçil, the owner of Kappa Tour, explained how he and his friend Barış Öztürk, who is still at the head of Travel Zone, grew up with the following statements:
''When I founded kappa tour 20 years ago, I used the advantages of my background as a guide to find out which hotel to buy and for how much? How to negotiate with whom? By learning and applying information such as where and how to make tours in the most effective way, I started to make the same tours at more affordable prices than other travel agencies. I never forget that at that time, there were rumours about me about how I could make these tours at these prices. Even today, those who made these rumours have gone bankrupt, some of them have closed down, some of them are in millions of euros of debt, they will go bankrupt today or tomorrow. In that period, I saw that the hotel I bought for 10 liras, the other one buys for 15, the company makes a turnover, the numbers are high, the boss's eyes are painted with turnover, we have sold so many people, when no one looks at whether 1 lira profit would be 3, this wheel continues like this.
Half of the 5 liras in between goes into the pocket of the manager who buys the hotel or package at a higher price
This is how the order is established, but in the end, while the money in the manager's pocket increases, the company does not make a profit, and in the slightest bottleneck, current accounts, deferred payments, high turnovers, etc., the company comes to the point of bankruptcy in one day. Since I was both the boss, manager and manager of my company, such a stealing and stealing situation did not occur and I could make more affordable tours and make real profits, and I was investing them in my company and ensuring that the company grew more and more every year. When kappa tour started to grow well 10-12 years ago, I was tried to be blocked by my competitors, and my agreements on planes and hotels were tried to be broken. However, I have fulfilled all of my commitments to all the hotels and airline companies I have been working with for 20 years, I have never worked on a current basis, all my payments were made 100 percent without moving passengers, I did not give anyone a cheque. I did not ask for a maturity from anyone and all the companies I worked with always trusted Kappa Tur. This is the main source of this strong structure that continues today. When these rival agencies tried to prevent me, I made a plan on how to get income from them within their system.
Barış Öztürk with his give and take relationship...
Barış Öztürk who was working as a manager at Fly Express at that time, had established a good relationship with all travel agencies and their managers. He was also a close friend of mine as someone who was loved by everyone and especially stole the hearts of the bosses. Barış was sincere with every manager, had dinners with them, went on trips abroad with the bosses, took them to Cuba, Mexico, Amsterdam, hosted them and made them work with the company. As a result, a B2B company buys a room and hotel for 10 liras, but makes a package and sells it to the tour operator for 15 liras. This always seemed meaningless to me, the sale of the tour operator. You are doing it, but you don't buy your hotel, your plane, you pay 15 liras for 10 liras and the boss doesn't question it. Anyway, I say that the system has come this way in Turkey today is still going on like this. After all, it is a good thing for me that my competitors did not make their own tours because they were not in a position to compete.
They stole my staff
At that time, I had a problem with Fly Express and Pronto tour because they hired one of my staff. Something unethical was done. I made a plan and offered a job to Barış. I told him that I wanted to change the name of my existing company Millennium and enter the B2B business. He was also in such a search and accepted. Immediately, we transferred the shares that appeared in my name to Barış and received a power of attorney from the notary to take half of the company's shares and started partnership. At that time, my cousin had sports complex facilities called ZONE. Inspired by him, I decided to name the company Travel Zone. I immediately bought the domain. travelzonegroup.com. We rented an office in Harbiye. Of course, not everything is easy in the establishment phase. Even the guarantor of the office to be rented was rented when I was the guarantor. We got the travel agency certificate and then we decided to open an office there first because Italy is the country I am most familiar with. With the help of a close friend of my father, we rented an office next to the Vatican. Systems, computers, personnel, etc., we prepared and set up everything in a few weeks.
I was hidden behind the Travel Zone
Now it was time to do business. Since Travel Zone is my company, of course, we started to open some of Kappa Tour's packages through Travel Zone in order to ensure that it could produce numbers first. Then we planned that other travel agencies would gradually come in time. Of course, no one believed that Barış could do this job during this period. Because Istanbul office, Italy office, staff and so much investment. In the first years, everyone thought that Barış could not do it and would probably go bankrupt and close down. Of course, nobody knew that I was behind him, that I put money into the company, that I kept his office, that I paid the salaries of the staff, that I bought his hotels and aeroplanes.
We got the jobs for Pronto Tour and Fly Express
Over time, the company slowly started to grow. Pronto Tur was the first competitor in the target. First, Barış stepped in to get Pronto Tur's business. It was easy to connect the manager with the sincerity already coming from Fly Express. In a short time, we started to take the Italian business of the travel agency, which was considered to be an Italy expert, and even started to give package tours. Each outgoing group was leaving a good profit because the profit margin and prices were high. Your competitor is working for you, what more do you want. We stopped working when Pronto Tur's payments started to have problems. Instead, another competitor Jolly Tur started working with us. Their manager Tolga had already been maintaining a sincere relationship with Barış for years, and when Barış connected the boss with a few trips and meals, they started working immediately. We have been making 65 per cent of the company's profit from them for years. In fact, we have come to such a level that my competitors started to fly with the flight packages I bought. kappa tur was written on the tickets given to their passengers. There was a bit of a problem when Kappa tickets were given to their passengers. We decided to make Travel Zone IATA. We didn't want other travel agencies to wake up.
The system of give and take was fully established and other competing agencies in the market started to work with us. Now it was time to grow the company even more. This time my childhood friend Cem Yağoğlu was again running the Fly Express Far East office. Obviously he was not very happy there. But I couldn't leave my dear friend there, whom I talked to almost every day. I immediately made him a job offer. In a short time, I established the Travel Zone Far East office and hired Cem. We made Cem 33 per cent profit and partner of the Far East office and 66 per cent of the office was owned by Barış and me.
Tour operators are unable to do business without us
In a short time the Far East office started to grow. In addition to Leasure groups, many incentive agencies started to take the service. We even hired Harun, who everyone knows in the Far East, and gave him a profit share. Again, as I said, thanks to my competitors, they sell and I earn. Now we have reached such a situation that these operators cannot do business without us. There has been such an order that Tatilbudur sells W holiday packages. so from whom does W buy holiday packages? Of course from Travel Zone. Apart from these, Coral, Gezimod, Turistica all work for me.
Baris has been tired lately. I can't stand people's bad breath anymore. I'm sick of them. Take him to dinner, take him to Mexico. Make him eat, make him drink. Give this, give that. When he said he couldn't deal with it anymore, we decided to make Cem Yağlıoğlu a partner of the main company. Now we are partners with Cem, we transferred the shares that Barış owned to Cem. Barış is like a counsellor. He follows the relationships of give and take. He teaches these relationships to Cem, and we're rolling along. As I said, thanks to my competitors, they sell and I earn. I've been eating their bread for so long. I wish all my competitors abundant sales.''
