Abstract:

Sports, which is an important tool for the socialization of individuals, is a social as well as a cultural phenomenon. Through sports, individuals have the opportunity to interact with different cultures and get to know different cultures while meeting many people. Athletes traveling to different countries or cities for sports organizations, on the one hand, participate in sports tourism, on the other hand, they also participate in cultural tourism indirectly by learning the culture of that country or city and visiting its cultural heritage, but Although individuals traveling to different countries or cities for sports purposes have a lot of opportunities as sports tourists, this situation is not preferred by the athletes who participate in sports tourism, lagging behind the feeling of struggle. The aim is to determine interest in cultural heritage of athletes who participate in sports tourism in order to participate in the 2019 Koç Sport Fest Universities Grand Final which is organized by the Federation of University Sports. In the study, a questionnaire which includes 17 question was applied to the athletes participating in the 2019 Koç Sports Fest Universities Grand Final. 224 athletes from different universities and different sports branches participated in the survey. The frequency values of the answers given to the questions in the questionnaire were analyzed by transferring them to IBM SPSS Statistics 20 program. In the research, it is seen that the athletes get information about cultural heritages and tend to visit them. In order to increase the contribution of sports to the promotion of cultural heritage, it is necessary to ensure that individuals participating in sports tourism also participate in cultural tourism. In this context, studies that will include athletes in cultural tourism and increase their awareness of cultural heritage are needed.

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