Abstract:

It is important that local people have a positive attitude in the sustainable development of tourism activities at the international level. The assessment of local people’s attitudes ensures the formation of forecasts about their expectations or satisfactions for tourism. In this direction, sustainable tourism steps are also helping tourism stakeholders in their planning and activities. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the attitude of the local people to sustainable tourism development by the demographic characteristics. The study was conducted from January 28 to April 5, 2019. During this time, the survey method has obtained data of 457 participants from the Edirne universe. The data is collected through the internet environment and face-to-face conversations. The research has shown that the local people have a high participation in the statements of sustainable tourism development. In the assessment with demographic characteristics, it is seen that they provide similar participation to expressions of environmental, social and economic dimensions. Similar attitudes predict that tourism will have positive economic, social and environmental effects. Therefore, it is expected that local people with positive attitudes will show positive behaviors towards the current tourism development and will also support sustainable tourism development.

Keywords: