When Serafettin Ulukent opened his holiday village in a cove on Turkey's Aegean coast in the s, his first guests were German surfers, who enjoyed the brisk winds, cool beers and chilled-out beach parties. But since he stepped in one day to help conservative Turkish Muslims abandoned by a tour operator, there has been no turning back.
A new Islamic hotel recently opened in Bodrum, a resort popular with British tourists where topless bathing is common. The religious-minded AK Party is in power, but the state enshrines secularism so debates about Islam crystallise around headscarves and women's covering.
At the weekend, a group of 50 women in skimpy dresses marched in Istanbul in protest at what they see as the creeping Islamisation of Turkish society after a woman was convicted of exhibitionism for wearing "improper clothing".
Many Turks single out the hotels as evidence of the impact of religious conservatism. Mr Ulukent, a non-practising Muslim, has had his share of fanatics. One guest was angered by music coming from the women's bathing area.
But he thinks it is the patriarchal attitudes of macho Turkish men rather than Islamisation, which is pushing the demand for his kind of hotel. Religious women claim it is they who are punished for their views.
