Abstract:

The tourism sector is among the fast-growing sectors in our country and around the world. Competitiveness of the destinations that have the touristic resources depends on taking strategic decisions within the framework of sustainable policies. In this sense, analysis of the sector status in present and future is a significant consideration. SWOT analysis is an important technique that serves this purpose. The main purpose of this study is to analyze thermal tourism of Afyonkarahisar with SWOT technique in terms of participants’ views. In this context, the staff working in thermal hotels licensed from Culture and Tourism Ministry is identified as research universe. In the analysis of the data collected through the survey method, the frequency-percentage distribution, mean and standard deviation values, "t-test" and "Analysis of Variance" for the measurement of the difference between the two groups and Duncan test for the determination of the source of the differences were used. According to the findings of analysis of the data collected in the study, the views of the participants about SWOT analysis of Afyonkarahisar thermal tourism vary according to age groups in weaknesses factor. The views of participants about SWOT analaysis of Afyonkarahisar thermal tourism also vary according to departments in strengths, opportunities and threats factors.

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