Anzac Day centenary 2015: Aussies ditch Gallipoli ballot tickets due to high costs

HUNDREDS of national ballot winners who had been set to attend next year’s 100th anniversary of Gallipoli have turned in their tickets due to the high costs.

16/9/2014- Eceabat, Gallipoli peninsula, Turkey. The town of Eceabat is the closest town to Anzac Cove where Anzac day dawn service will be celebrated in April 2015 when 10.000 people are expected. The town is preparing to the huge affluence of people by building new hotels. Prices for accomodation are expected to be much higher than the previous years. Pic Ella Pellegrini

HUNDREDS of national ballot winners who had been set to attend next year’s 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli campaign have turned in their tickets with some citing both the trip and cost now beyond them.

The move also comes as security for the big event is again being reviewed by Turkish, Australian and New Zealander officials, including discussion of a new global threat against the West from groups like Islamic State.

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A lucky 8000 Australians received passes to attend the Anzac Day ceremony on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey next April but News Corp Australia has learned up to 300 have handed them back.

Among the reasons cited were accommodation costs in the towns closest to the national park peninsula, including Eceabat and Canakkale, with some hotels jacking up their room rates by 300 per cent.

Cashing in ... nearby towns have been building apartment blocks and hotels for the influx of visitors.

While only a select few with tickets are going to be allowed through heavy security to attend ceremonies, hundreds of other visitors from Australia and New Zealand are planning to be in the area to take part in off site commemorations and tours.

Some hotels began taking deposits two years ago while others raised prices as the last of the rooms were being snapped up.

Incredibly, since just April 25 this year, at least seven new apartment blocks have been built in Eceabat alone with the new homes to be ready to rent to visitors in 2015. Many locals are also renting out their homes for $AU360 a night with hotels charging an average $AU642 a night.

There has been somewhat of a building boom in the towns near Gallipoli with new shops developed and better signs and improved roads to cater for the tens of thousands expected to come.

Lest we forget ... up to 40,000 Australians visit Anzac Cove each year.

Each year up to 1.5 million Turkish visit the site of their great victory, which they argue too forged their modern national identity, and up to 40,000 Australians.

It is understood while the Department of Veterans Affairs had received reports of accommodation costs as a reasons to hand back tickets, most of the returnees were for other reasons including realisation they physically could no longer take part with age and disabilities making it too much of a challenge.

There have also been several cases where ticket holders have died. Under the terms of the ballot program, if a primary ticket holder could no longer go their whole double pass has to be surrendered. All tickets go back into the pot for a second round to go to those who were runners up in the main ballot held last year.

Big bucks ... many locals are renting out their homes for $360 a night and hotels will charge $642 a night.

Veterans Affairs officials are this week meeting Turkish counterparts and event organisers in Cannakale to go over plans for the 2015 commemorations. This followed a series of meetings in Ankara.

The intensive planning program includes a review of security withnew threats since the last review including the emergence of the Islamic State.

Turkey’s long and porous border with Syria make it a heightened risk to IS fighters and the Turkish Government has been doing a balancing act to react to demands by the West to tighten security and ensure terrorist funding was not taking place in their country. But the country has also not signed up to the Jeddah Communique, which has 10 Arab states including Egypt and Lebanon agree to fight IS, so as to not antagonise their neighbours. Turkey, despite being a critical member of NATO, is also not allowing its military bases to be used by Allied aircraft to launch offensives against IS.

Originally published as Anzac Day centenary 2015: Aussies ditch Gallipoli ballot tickets due to high costs