Three generations, one promise

The story of UTS, United Travel Services, is the story of Turkish hospitality made professional, carried by three generations of one family.

The Gypsy Girl, a mosaic of the 2nd century AD from Zeugma, in the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, Gaziantep, Türkiye.

The founder

Nurdan Üstman

“Sevdiğin işi, sevdiğin stilde yapmak.”

“Doing the work you love, in the style you love.”

Her story begins in Ankara in 1959, when a broken shoe heel stopped a fresh TED Ankara Koleji graduate outside a Swissair office and a classmate mentioned the ticket counter was hiring. Nine months of 3 a.m. airport check-ins later, the airline world had her for good.

Degrees in English literature and classical archaeology followed, then thirteen years with Pan American World Airways and thirteen more building one of İstanbul’s leading agencies, years in which she brought United Airlines to Türkiye and absorbed what she calls the airline’s discipline: exact, punctual, allergic to error.

In 1995 she founded UTS with her daughter, the late Didem, deliberately declining mass-market internet business to serve the member advisors of the world’s leading travel networks, guest by guest. Today her grandson, Çınar Ark, carries the firm into its third generation, while Ms. Üstman, never without one of her famous hats, still teaches at TÜRSAB (Association of Turkish Travel Agencies) and keeps an eye on every file.

Nurdan Üstman, in a black hat, holding the Skål International Lifetime Achievement award on stage among members in evening dress — Nurdan Üstman receiving the Skål Lifetime Achievement Award, İstanbul, 2025.

Six decades

Milestones

1959
A broken shoe heel in Ankara leads a TED Koleji graduate to a Swissair ticket counter. Ms. Üstman’s life in travel begins.
1966
Pan American World Airways, Ankara, thirteen years of airline discipline and American marketing training.
1979
General manager and partner of one of İstanbul’s leading travel agencies for thirteen years; incoming, yachts, congresses. In these years she brings United Airlines to Türkiye as its general sales agent.
1995
Nurdan’s United Travel Services Inc. is founded in İstanbul with her daughter, the late Didem, who steered the firm’s operations and finances at her mother’s side for twenty-five years. “She was my joy of life, my sunshine,” says Nurdan. She lives in the hearts of everyone who was lucky enough to know her.
2021
Galataport opens, shore excursion operations move to the heart of the city. Çınar Ark, the third generation, represents the firm at the networks’ annual conferences.
2026
Three generations on, the promise is unchanged: every guest personally met.

How we work

Three habits we keep

Walked, not booked
Every hotel, restaurant and vehicle in our programmes is inspected in person by our own team, season after season.
One named contact
Advisors work with a single, senior operations manager from first enquiry to the guests’ flight home.
Quietly on call
A 24/7 WhatsApp duty line in English for every travelling guest.