Özet:

The purpose of the study is to determine the perceptions of Beydağları Coastal National Park visitors on protected areas, which is one of the protected areas within the borders of Antalya province. For this purpose, questionnaires were applied for 768 volunteers in Beydağları Coastal National Park between September-December of 2017 and the obtained data were analyzed by SPSS program. According to the analysis results, the majority of the visitors live in Antalya, at the age of 26-35, are male and university/college graduates, work in self-employment and have a monthly income between 2501-4000 Turkish Liras. At the same time, they mostly stated that they knew the area and went to the area in advance, and that they visited the area once or twice a year. To visitors, the most obvious features of the protected area studied are water availability and the beauty of beach. The most effective activity, experience, educational and social matters in the area for visitors were found as “Spending time with my family-friends”, “Feeling relieved”, “Getting more information about culture” and “Having fun with my friends, respectively. In addition, the majority of the visitors stated that they agreed on the items “Protected areas offer a scenery effect” and “Recreational opportunity” within the context of the benefits and perception of protected area, respectively. As a result, it has been thought that taking into account the perceptions of the visitors of Beydağları Coastal National Park determined in this study will contribute to both the management decisions regarding protected areas and the protection-usage balance of the area.

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