Finnish shoot reality TV show in Alanya (23.12.2009)
Finnish shoot reality TV show in Alanya, "Matkaoppaat"...
In January 2010, a reality TV series filmed in Alanya will start being broadcast on Finnish television. "Tour Reps," or "Matkaoppaat" as the series is known in Finnish, was shot in Alanya between August and November this year.
The series follows the daily lives of seven tour reps working for Detur Finland, and the challenges involved with looking after the hundreds of Finnish and Swedish tourists who arrive at the Mediterranean holiday resort each week. The series is produced by Finnish broadcast company Susamuru in cooperation with Detur Finland.
Executive Producer of Susamuru Sari Isotalo told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review one reason why Susamuru chose Alanya as the location for its first series of "Matkaoppaat" was the preconception that people in Finland have about Turkey. "Some in Finland are a bit prejudiced against both package holidays as well as Turkey. Especially because of this, Alanya is an excellent site for a project like this. Although the town is a very popular tourism resort, it is also a normal Turkish town with a Turkish way of living. This would not have been the case in Cran Canaria, for example," Isotalo said.
The series will be broadcast in half hour episodes four nights a week beginning in January. The events that Susamuru's production team picked from the material collected this fall include a myriad of topics: a Finnish wedding day celebration on the beach, a Turkish wedding, a drunken brawl between tourists, a visit to potential new trip destination Sapadere Canyon, and others.
Kaisa Pylkkänen, director of Matkaoppaat said the series will most likely surprise Finnish viewers in two ways. "Viewers are likely to be surprised when they see how western Turkey actually is. Many Finns have the preconception that in Turkey all women wear the veil and it is not possible to consume alcohol. People's idea of Muslims is based on Saudi Arabia; few have a realistic image of this country," she said.
The other reason why the series is bound to be popular in Finland is that it shows Swedes - and not Finns - as the group that causes tour reps the most concern. "One very surprising realization we have made is that drunken Swedish tourists here behave much worse than Finns," Pylkkänen added.
Petri Hanttu, director of "Matkaoppaat" said Susamuru's production team was grateful for all the help and support the Alanya Municipality gave to the 16-member crew. "The municipality of Alanya offered us a really outstanding environment to realize this project. The series is a very colorful mix of events, places, characters and issues. It is bound to keep any viewer interested."
Pylkkänen agreed and noted the series was also a good lesson on Turkish culture for the production team. "We have a lot to learn from the locals. At first, many of us got tense when things took longer than we expected or we had to wait for something. This is because the concept of time here is so different than Finland. On the other hand, we have come to realize it is possible to take life easier, it does not have to be that effective and result-driven."
Susamuru is already planning to shoot a second season of "Matkaoppaat" in Alanya next summer. "This was such a fun and interesting project, as well as a concept bound to be successful on Finnish TV, that we are already making plans for the next summer," Isotalo concluded.
Executive Producer of Susamuru Sari Isotalo told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review one reason why Susamuru chose Alanya as the location for its first series of "Matkaoppaat" was the preconception that people in Finland have about Turkey. "Some in Finland are a bit prejudiced against both package holidays as well as Turkey. Especially because of this, Alanya is an excellent site for a project like this. Although the town is a very popular tourism resort, it is also a normal Turkish town with a Turkish way of living. This would not have been the case in Cran Canaria, for example," Isotalo said.
