Possibilities Offered by Tourism in Turkey - Term Paper Example

Topic:  Tourism in Turkey Tourism comprises the activities carried out by people during their holidays and their visit to places different from their usual environment or residence, for a consecutive period of time less than a year, with leisure, business or other purposes. McIntosh, Goeldner and Ritchie 1995: 11. Introduction Tourism is in one sense exclusively associated with traveling although all travels are not tourism: it signifies displacement since it involves moving out of one’s usual environment. Two theories, namely, activity theory and need theory that concerns life satisfaction imply leisure and recreation activities as important determinants in heightening one’s sense of satisfaction in life (Rodriguez et al. 2008). Lemon et al., argues that life satisfaction increases with the frequency and the intimacy of the recreational activity (1972). While this remains so tourism helps meet the psychological needs for recreation and leisure (Ryan and Deci 2000). Tourism also combines within it the search for experiences that are new in life. It could be considered as part of one’s interests to learn, to buy, to eat, to explore/watch/see and to do something new. Behind every tourist enterprise a combination of factors, individually and collectively, determine the destination. The process of perceiving a place as one’s tourist destination is an important area in tourism related research. In this paper I briefly attempt to understand the possibilities offered by tourism in Turkey. The attempt is primarily from the perspective of understanding the potentials of Turkey to offer, and attract, the tourist with a stress free, romantic and collectively enjoyable holiday period. The paper also discusses such aspects of tourism as are related with its psychological aspects, aspects that are exclusively associated with the perception of images and places while deciding one’s tourist destinations, and the theoretical dimensions of discussing tourism from other possible perspectives. This attempt is precisely oriented towards understanding Turkey as a tourist site and as located within such multiple theoretical concerns related with its tourism possibilities. Tourism in Turkey Turkey constitutes a bridge between Asia and Europe and has constantly been subjected to, and influenced by, the cultures of these two continents. Turkey is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa and is a gateway to both the East and the West. It shares its bounderies with Asian countries of Iran, Iraq and Caucasian countries like Georgia, Armenia and the European countries of Greece and Bulgaria. Apart from the fact it constitutes the first (and until now the only one where majority of the population is Muslims) secular Muslim country its land is inhabited by a heterogeneous ethnical combination of people (Yaya 2008). In addition to possessing strong traces and cultural markers of earlier civilizations Turkey offers charming natural tourist resources including beaches, high mountains, rivers and lakes, forests and caves and flora and fauna. The heterogeneous climatic conditions of Turkey vary from subtropical in its south to strong rainy along the Black sea coastline. The history of Turkey as an international tourist site is a recently one. Nevertheless tourism industry as a source of much needed foreign exchange has always been recognized. Tourism planning and the related developments in its infrastructure was figured as an important area in the first Five year plan (1963-68) itself, which received consistently increasing attention in the subsequent plans. The Foreign Investments Encouragement Law and the Tourism Encouragement Law were primarily legislated, and still function as key interventions from the part of the government, to sustain the industry at a level as we see it today. As a result of these interventions and other related developments state domination considerably released the economic life from its clutches where private sector investment became more apparent and crucial. Turget Var (2007) categorizes government policies and nature of interventions with regard to Turkey’s tourism development as follows. 1. Strong nationalistic policy (1924-1950) 2. Protectionist liberalism (1950-1960) 3. Planned Economy period (1961-1980) 4. Intoduction to Private entrepreunership (1980-1990) 5. Emphasis on private sector and liberal economic policy (1990-present). (Var 2007: 2-4) As one could see that orientation towards opening the industry’s market and utilizing its possibilities to all the possible limits started in the 1960s with a planned economy which then gradually progressed towards encouraging private entrepreneurship and then a full stress on liberal economic policy. The changing policies started showing results towards the second half on 1980s and in 1990 the number of foreign arrivals reached 5.4 million, or almost twice the number registered in the preceding years. This has resulted in a proportionate increase in the tourism revenue as well which exceeded 3.3 billion in 1990. Despite the negative impacts of the Gulf war and related sequence of events, which was indeed a serious blow to the tourism industry in Turkey but nevertheless remained short for the time period of its effects, tourism flourished in Turkey to the extent that its revenue reached close to $10 billion by the end of 1997. It has been consistently on the rise ever since then. Tourism in Turkey started in the coastal regions which then flourished to reach its present levels where the average number of visitors per year is counted to be around 20 million and revenue cutting across the $15 billion. It is forecasted that Europe will experience, by the 2020, considerable decrease as a tourism destiny although it may still continue to attract the largest number of tourists. On the face of facts it becomes inevitable for countries within this region to diversify its services so as to deviate from the conventional anticipations associated with tourism industry and to serve purposes that have changed accordingly. Nevertheless one of the chief alternatives ways of hosting tourism is health tourism and (Gartner, 1996; Aslanyürek, 1984) Turkey offers immense possibilities in this context. With regard to health tourism the benefits are mainly yielded from natural springs, water cures, spas and mud: to this is added the already existing medicinal hot water treatments. Turkey, in this regard, also adds seawater therapy, beauty treatment, treatments that are meant to enhance the physical and mental fitness and treatments that are especially meant to reduce the mental stress, that is, anti stress treatments. Also mentionable in this context are thermal resorts that host a range of treatment opportunities (Lier and Taylor, 1993; Gartner, 1996; Lawton and Weaver, 2001). In the next section a discussion about the relation between leisure, stress, recreation and tourism is initiated as also the main elements in the process of perceiving a site as one’s tourist destination. This shall, then, lead to conclusion where I will attempt to see how Turkey brings these relationships into coherent tourism practices and continue to be one of the successful regions in this regard. Stress, leisure and perception of destinations in tourism The direct relation between psychological stress and cognitive performance is already well known and is proven beyond any doubts (Harris et al. 2005). The modern/post modern conditions has fashioned life in ways that individuals quite often find themselves amidst times when they are stressed and tensed to the point where a break from their daily routines becomes not only desirable but also an inevitable one. This is precisely where tourism gathers significance as it, despite the destiny chosen, offers the traveler/tourist opportunities to find and experience novelties in life and to break one’s mental set up free from the daily hassles of life. However tourism has also emerged much beyond these traditional anticipations to reach a point where it could be identified as an industry with its own definitions of market and marketability, new opportunities not only for the tourist but also for the hosting societies, and new relations and tie ups across the globe. Although in the ordinary conceptions of tourism destination is not a primary concern in a scenario that is drastically changed from the previous occasions it is one. At a primary level the destiny is closely associated with what the tourist is actually anticipating for. Hence typical sites emerge as the preferred tourist destinations for the purposes they are known to serve better. Such common purposes are categorized as Cultural and historical tourism, Health Tourism, Conference- Congress Tourism, Sports tourism, Eco- tourism and Entertainment Tourism. As one can easily imagine names of places get easily associated with these purposes depending upon their landscapes, natural resources, historical antiquity etc. However tourism is such an industry that hosts tough competition between regions in order to attract more visitors to them and thus earn more revenue. Out of these competitive spirits most of the regions have come out of their ‘natural’ limits in an effort to diversify and broaden their range in this regard. Tourism is a dynamic force, premised on and sustained by difference over space. It takes myths and dreams and inscribes them on to physical places. Tourism destinations are thus transformed from ordinary geographic spaces through the perspective of visitors and continuous invention of landscapes of symbolic consumption (Young, 1999). Also important is the fact that there are different narratives about places that deliberately and unintentionally add to the common perceptions of their images; for example is the tourist literature intended to popularize the major qualities and resources of their service and attract more visitors. Thus Some scholars argue that destination is not simply a series of individual products, but one that combines them with experience which is derived from both the physical setting and various travel services (Cohen, 1979; Hu & Ritchie, 1993; Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987; Mayo & Jarvis, 1981; Ross, 1998). The destination is, therefore, framed ideologically by marketers and tourists that arrive with a set of preconceived ideas, which Urry (2002) calls ‘the tourist gaze” including ‘romantic’ and ‘collective’. ‘Romantic gaze’ refers to the gaze by better educated visitors that have the cultural capital to construct meaning from places and events. ‘Collective gaze’ belongs to those that are less informed and therefore less discerning and more in need of similar gazers to verify the point of gazing in the first place. Conclusion Turkey has several unique opportunities for different types of tourism compiled under the category of alternative tourism, which include, in addition to coastal tourism, health and thermal tourism, winter sports, mountain climbing and layout tourism, adventure trips, plateau tourism and echo tourism, cruise ship and yacht tourism, golf tourism and so on and so forth . Although debates persist within Turkey as to whether the full potentials of its natural resources have been utilized, it is still worth mentioning that Turkey has succeeded to remain unquestionably as a choice of a primary destiny within the maps of tourism. As we saw in the previous sections it has successfully managed to bring into coherent practice all those perceived anticipations and imaginations of an ideal tourist spot. References Aslanyürek, ükrü. Organization of Management of Tourism in Turkey: 1963-1981. University of Birmingham, 1984. Cohen, E. “A Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences.” Sociology, 13.2 (1979): 179-201. Gartner, William, C., Tourism Development: Principles, Processes, and Policies. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1996. Harris, Wayne C., P. A. Hancock, and Scot C. Harris. “Information Processing Changes Following Extended Stress.” Military Psychology 17.2 (2005): 115–128. Hu, Y., & Ritchie, J. R. 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