A hotel in Anatolia in the last period of the Ottoman Empire: Hotel Tadia (1892–1922)

Abstract

A quiet and underdeveloped town, in the last quarter of 19th century, Eskişehir in Turkey began to liven up with the arrival of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. Since train rides took two days and the passengers had to stop and stay overnight in Eskişehir, the city became in need of a hotel, and the visitors began to stay at hotels, along with inns and public houses. Upon this need, Madame Tadia, a Bohemian lady, turned a large house near the station into a hotel. Within this context, Hotel Tadia has an important place in the tourism history of Eskişehir. The purpose of this study is to create a microhistory of Hotel Tadia, which paved the way for the concept of modern hotel business in Eskişehir, and to reveal the sense of modern hotel business that it brought to Anatolia between 1892 and 1922.