Özet:

The tourism sector is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In an environment of increasing competition, developing new types of tourism and attracting more tourists in new destinations have become a serious advantage. One of the most important types of the tourism sector is the tourism for physically disabled individuals. The tourism for physically disabled individuals that emerged with the engagement of physically disabled persons in touristic activities is a brand-new tourism branch in Turkey whose infrastructure has not been developed yet. There are more than 1 billion physically disabled persons in the world and the tourism market of physically disabled individuals only in Europe reached to 150 million Euros as of 2016. Silent tourism means a tourism branch implying hearing impaired tourism. Hearing-impaired persons have been chosen as the subject of this study since they do not require any additional investments in travel and accommodation. The purpose of this study is to assess the current state of supply and demand related to hearing-impaired person group that does not require any investments in travel and accommodation and as the target demand market hearing-impaired persons living in Europe and the USA have been chosen. The study reveals that there is a significant number of hearing-impaired persons in Turkey and in the world. The studies conducted in Turkey demonstrate that there is a lack of investments in infrastructure aimed at disabled persons in rest stops. One of the findings of this study is that since the situation explained above does not hinder in any way tourism-oriented at hearing-impaired persons the latter is the best-suited form of disabled-oriented tourism for Turkey.

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