Abstract:

Sustainable tourism development is one of the most important ways to reduce the negative effects of tourism. The aim of this study is to evaluate Türkiye's tourism policies as a developing country in the last 41 years within the framework of sustainable tourism principles. Using the literature, what the sustainable tourism principles could be was discussed and the principles based on the scope of the study were put forward. In order to determine Türkiye's 41-year tourism policies, a total of seven development plan texts, starting from the fifth five-year development plan, were examined, and Turkey's most important long-term tourism plan, Türkiye Tourism Strategy, was evaluated for the same purpose. Basic tourism policies are compared with sustainable tourism principles. As a result, it has been determined that although policies in line with sustainable tourism principles are included in all plans, policies in line with sustainable tourism principles have been emphasized more, especially since the 2000s (Eighth five-year development plan). It has been observed that all development plans include quantitative targets such as increasing the supply of tourist beds, increasing the number of tourists, increasing tourism revenues, spreading and diversifying tourism to all regions. In the 2023 Türkiye Tourism strategy, the basic issues specified in the development plans are planned in detail; It was observed that new concepts such as tourism region, tourism city, tourism council and tourism corridor were used. In order to implement sustainable tourism principles more successfully, visitor management system applications, dissemination of small-scale flexible accommodation facilities, implementation of sustainable tourism indicators and determination of carrying capacities of regions have been suggested.

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