Abstract:

This study aims to examine the relationship between the effect of residents’ place attachment on tourism, residents’ tourism-oriented behavioral intentions, and their behavioral attitude towards sustainable tourism policies. Within the framework of this study, field research was conducted in ten neighborhoods in the city of Amasya with traditional neighborhood texture in 2017. 460 people participated in the study. The participants were selected by simple random sampling and they were asked to complete a survey aimed to measure all three aspects. In order to exhibit the relationship between place attachment and tourism, principal components analysis, Spearman Correlation analysis, and Kruskal Wallis analysis were applied. As per the analyses, it was determined that the components that define place attachment are place dependency and social attachment; residents with higher place attachment are more positive towards the development of tourism and the more satisfaction residents have towards tourism-oriented strategies, the more they have social attachment and place dependency. Finally, the findings indicate that a tourism scenario can be sustainable within a framework that strengthens the place attachment of residents living in historical areas and traditional neighborhoods and one that does not contradict with the regional scales and overall identity

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