Abstract:

Health or cure forms one of the major motives while travelling. From the early periods of time, people wishing to make use of the treatments offered by nature aim to return to their health by visiting thermal springs. Today the number of people taking part in thermal tourism movements increase rapidly mainly in developed countries and the ageing populations participate in thermal tourism for third age and health tourism purposes. Although the thermal springs in Turkey (among the first seven countries in terms of the spring richness) have superior characteristics than the other thermal springs in Europe with its porperties of volume of flow, hotness, and physical and chemical ingredients, the number of tourists visiting Turkey is still less than the countries in Europe. The same position is valid for Cesme which can‟t get its share from the overall tourism industry movements, although it has great tourism potential with its unique beaches, surfing and swimming, climate and thermal springs and a good network of transportation, etc. At this point, the aim of the study is to develop improvement tendencies evaluating the current thermal springs to obtain a bigger share from the overall tourism movements for the benefit of Cesme and spread the tourism season into 12 months.

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