MISSSING: TRAVERTINE

Just about everyone in the industry recognizes that stone sales are cyclical. The popularity of dark granites in kitchens gave way to lighter-colored marbles and quartz-surface replicas, and at some point will likely swing back again. However, travertine always served a broad spectrum of markets, from bathrooms and floor tile to pool areas to commercial cladding. And, import numbers to the United States starting in 2015 show that both in terms of U.S. dollars and metric tons, the travertine market has taken it on the chin. The total dollar value of those imports has decreased by more than half over the five-year period, and the volume in metric tons has shrunk by almost two-thirds. The current pandemic doesn’t suggest much optimism for 2020, either. Turkey, which led the market both in volume and dollar value over that five-year period, has obviously been hit hardest by the decline. From a value of $189,839,726 in 2015, its travertine sales to this country dropped to $70,542,767 last year. Over the same period, the amount of travertine it shipped to the U.S. dropped from 620,167 metric tons to 180,096. Simply because Turkey makes up such a large share of the market – that 180,096 metric tons still represents almost 72% of the total market, although that’s down from its 85.5% share in 2015 – it might be easy to assume the problem is with the country. And, as anyone who watches or reads the news knows, Turkey has had a rocky few years as the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan clamped down on opposition and came under threat of a military coup. However, those in the industry say that doesn’t seem to be in play. “There’s still plenty of Turkish material you can buy out of Italy,” says Jonathan Verrengia, managing partner with Westwood, Mass.-based Marble and Granite Inc. “There are plenty of people there who are cutting blocks of Turkish material. Then, you have the travertine that comes from Italy, so there are other options available.” Jeff Matthews, president of Atlanta-based Trade International, agrees. For one thing, he says Turkey is not the first country to have political issues, although he admits they can be a factor at times. Instead, he sees another possibility with its stone. “It lacks credibility as a quality-control country in selection and uniformity and range of variation,” Matthews says. “It lacks the ability to produce abundantly cut-to-size projects with the standards required by the Natural Stone Institute in the U.S.” “People are willing to overcome most things if the stone is right, priced correctly and abundant,” says Matthews. “Turkey holds the largest natural reserve of stones in the world, but even with lower prices, it did not help sales.” By comparison, Italy saw its travertine imports to the United States cut by almost half during that five-year span (16,956 metric tons to 8,904 metric tons) as the actual value grew from $1,067 per ton to $2,178 per ton. By value, in 2019 Italy rose to second on the list, well behind Turkey, but still ahead of Mexico, which is this nation’s second-largest supplier of travertine by tonnage. And, observes Matthews, Turkey had also enjoyed a good run of travertine sales up until 2015. “The Turkish cyclable issues of travertine can be seen when the low in imports was in 2000, and reached its height in 2007, then declined until 2009, and increased until 2015,” he says. “Travertine had an extended demand and increase from 2000 to 2015 – a 15-year run. That’s most unusual for a stone.”