Amsterdam / Istanbul | April 2026
Istanbul is among the most visited cities globally, yet for many travellers, the experience remains limited to a short stay focused on a small number of well-known landmarks. The challenge is not a lack of attractions, but rather how visitors are guided to experience the city.
In response, the Good Travel Alliance has launched the Istanbul Experience Guide (www.goodtravel.guide/istanbul), designed to support a more balanced, informed, and meaningful way of exploring the destination. The guide aims to unlock the broader potential of Istanbul by encouraging visitors to extend their stay, explore a wider range of neighbourhoods, and engage more thoughtfully with the city.
The guide combines two core components. It provides access to a curated selection of verified, bookable experiences, enabling travellers to translate intention into action. In parallel, it offers structured guidance on how to navigate the city, including recommendations on where to go, when to visit, and how to engage with local businesses and communities.
At the core of the guide are the Good Travel Experiences (GTEs), a curated portfolio of experiences assessed against defined social, environmental, and economic criteria. These experiences are designed to ensure that tourism contributes positively to cultural preservation, community well-being, and environmental sustainability.
A key element of the Istanbul Experience Guide is its neighbourhood-based framework. Visitors are encouraged to explore beyond the historic centre, with recommendations including areas such as Kadıköy, Balat, and Arnavutköy, as well as parks, waterfronts along the Bosphorus, and restored cultural venues. This contributes to a more even spatial distribution of tourism while offering a broader and more representative experience of the city.
Recognising that major landmarks remain central to most itineraries, the guide introduces a temporal dimension to visitor management. Travellers are guided to the less crowded hours to visit sites such as Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar during less congested periods, improving visitor experience while alleviating peak-time pressure.
The guide further supports local economic participation by encouraging the selection of small, locally owned restaurants, accommodations, and guided activities. These choices strengthen the connection between tourism and community benefit.
“This guide demonstrates how sustainability principles can be operationalised through practical visitor choices,” said Albert Salman, Founder of Green Destinations and the Good Travel Alliance and CEO of the Good Travel Institute. “By structuring access to experiences and guiding how visitors move through a destination, it becomes possible to manage tourism flows more effectively while enhancing the overall visitor experience.”
While developed for Istanbul, the approach has wider applicability. Many destinations face similar challenges, including concentrated visitor pressure in historic centres, short average lengths of stay, and underutilised capacity in surrounding areas. The Istanbul Experience Guide provides a practical model that can be adapted to address issues such as overtourism, seasonality, and uneven distribution of tourism benefits.
The initiative also contributes to an ongoing international dialogue among destination managers, tourism professionals, and policymakers. These discussions will continue at the upcoming Good Travel Alliance Summit, 25-28 November 2026, in Istanbul, where destination managers and tour operators will discuss how the creation and promotion of impactful experiences can address emerging challenges and make tourism more sustainable. As part of the Summit programme, media representatives are invited to participate in a dedicated panel examining the role of journalism in shaping tourism narratives, including the challenges of overtourism and greenwashing.
The Istanbul Experience Guide is now available through the Good Travel Alliance platform in multiple languages: