Abstract:

Tourism sector is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in Lithuania. Karaim ethnic culture has a high potential to be developed as a tourism product and plays an important part in Lithuanian cultural heritage. Moreover, Karaim ethnic culture has an important potential for product diversification of the Lithuanian tourism sector. The purpose of this study is to examine Lithuanian Karaims living in Trakai as an ethnic tourism destination. In this study the tendencies and needs of Turkish tourists inTrakai, attitudes of local authorities, local community and local enterprises towards ethnic tourism were investigated. For this purpose, interwievs were made with Turkish tour operators that are organizing Trakai tours, Trakai local authority representatives and local enterprises. Using literature research and interview data, ethnic tourism in the region was examined and SWOT analysis was performed to determine its development strategies. This study is of great importance for revealing the touristic potential of the local Karaim culture and also for understanding Turkish tourists tendencies in the Karaim region. As a result of the study, it was determined that Trakai city as one of the most popular Turkish tourism destinations in Lithuania, which is famous for Karaim culture has grea tpotential from the ethnic tourism perspective. Furthermore, some strategies were determined in order to develope this potential. These strategies are; using Karaim ethnic cultural resources as a tourism product in the regional tourism marketing and marketing these products toTurkish tourists, promoting Karaim culture during the Lithuanian promotion in Turkey, easing visa procedures and lower tour prices in order to attract more Turkish tourists to Lithuania, because of its high population and close location including Turkey in Lithuania's priority target tourism markets list, in order to solve some problems in the Trakai tourism sector determining Trakai tourism politics and tourism planning using collaboration between tourism participants and local authorities is needed

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