Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The need to move towards
societal-oriented destination
marketing
cultural and natural heritage are a prerequisite
for ensuring quality of tourism supply, remain-
ing as a competitive tourist destination and pro-
viding a high quality tourist experience in the
long term. But such basic principles of sustain-
able tourism development may not be imple-
mented in Turkey because there is an insufficient
capacity to overcome clientelistic relationships
between decision-makers and the business elite
in the tourism industry that operates at the
cost of environmental degradation and societal
well-being (Tosun, 2001, 2005). In this context,
it is strongly believed that Turkey's accession to
the EU will accelerate the emergence of a more
democratic
Until the late 1980s, Turkey followed a
production-oriented marketing approach whose
main objective was to build sufficient physical
capacity including hotels, restaurants and tourist
transport, such as car hire facilities. By the mid-
1990s a product-oriented marketing approach
had been adopted to raise the quality of tourism
products, but it was undertaken without seeking
knowledge of the real needs of customers in the
target tourism markets. The resulting five-star
hotels and other luxury physical facilities have
thus not been appropriate to satisfy adequately
tourists' needs.
Although there have been some moves
towards market and societal-oriented marketing
management philosophies, in practice their
principles and strategies have not been imple-
mented (Tosun and Fyall, 2004). If progress
towards sustainable tourism development is to
be achieved, societal-oriented destination mar-
keting strategies need to be adopted that seek
to establish a balance between environmental
protection, enhanced societal well-being, and
long-term customer satisfaction and destination
profitability.
developmental
state
and
strong
NGOs
that
are
necessary
to
scrutinize and
enforce
rigorously
the
implementation
of
sustainable (tourism) development principles.
Second, while experience of developed
democratic countries suggests that for efficiency
and effectiveness of public services, sufficient
political, legal and financial power should be
given to local authorities, Turkish development
experience reveals that an over-centralization of
the public administration system has actually
accelerated socio-cultural and environmental
problems. Management of every single communal
issue by state bodies in Ankara has been proved
to be not only ineffective and inefficient, but also
undesirable. Similarly, the over-centralized nature
of tourism administration is unrepresentative
and unable to innovate and adapt to new global
conditions and market demands (Tosun, 2006).
Thus, a reorganization and restructuring of public
administration in Turkey appears to be an urgent
requirement in order to give more power to local
governments, to enable local people and NGOs
to participate in the tourism development process,
and to empower NGOs in participatory (tourism)
development decision-making. Local governments
cannot provide high quality services and deal
effectively with environmental problems without
having appropriate legal and financial authority.
Third, although Turkey has a rich potential
for non-mass forms of tourism development such
as ecotourism, cultural and rural tourism, mass
coastal tourism was deliberately developed to
contribute to the short-term economic objectives
of successive governments during the 1980s and
1990s. Various negative impacts of this uncon-
trolled, unplanned and mismanaged tourism
development,
Conclusion
This chapter has considered the implications of
Turkey's accession to the EU and of EU enlarge-
ment of the EU for Turkish tourism develop-
ment. It has dealt with a number of unknown
interrelated and interdependent variables that
have and will have various implications for and
impacts on tourism development both in Turkey
and in the EU. Thus, some parts of the argu-
ments raised in this chapter may be speculative
in nature. Notwithstanding, it is possible to draw
some general conclusions as well as making
policy recommendations for sustainable tour-
ism
development
in
Turkey
in
the
era
of
New Europe.
First, Turkish authorities should recognize
that the preservation of floral and faunal diver-
sity, maintaining cultural authenticity, considering
community well-being, avoiding architectural
pollution alongside coastal zones, and protecting
strongly
driven
by
powerful
