Today, nature-based tourism is one of the important export items of tourism industry in many coun... more Today, nature-based tourism is one of the important export items of tourism industry in many countries such as Australia, Kenya, Nepal, and New Zealand. However, the nature-based tourism resources of Turkey cannot be promoted since they have not been identified and classified yet. The aim of this paper is to identify and assess the natural resources having tourism potential to be developed in the western part of Lake Van basin. The increasing environmental awareness among consumers has lead tourism managers and plannners to satisfy this type of tourists’ needs by searching new tourism resources. First step for the effective planning is to systematically determine the resources and assess the values of them. The assessment criteria in this paper are attraction levels, infrastructure, level of environmental degradation, and accessibility. The 23 natural resources in the research area were classified based on Priskin's control list approach by applying several experts’ opinions and making journey to the sites. The places of nature-based tourism attractions were determined with Global Positioning System and this information were evaluated in the Geographic Information System based program of Mapinfo and hundreds of pictures were taken from all perspectives in the research area. The findings of research revealed that the sites have middle and high levels of attraction and low level of infrastructure. In addition to that, the results show that accessibility is not a inhibitory factor for the tourists to reach the destination and the level of degradation is very low in the area. Therefore, a planned research approach is necessary to investigate the areas with high tourism development potential and relatively untouched.
The aim of this article is to explore tourists’ perceptions about green initiatives in eco-friend... more The aim of this article is to explore tourists’ perceptions about green initiatives in eco-friendly hotels. The research sample was randomly chosen among domestic and international tourists staying in green certified hotels in Turkey. A single page questionnaire was conducted with tourists in the period of June-December 2012. In addition to questions related to demographic profile of tourists, perception of tourists about green practices of hotels that are determined in the certification category of Turkey was searched. The findings indicate that tourists are more concerned with tangible things when assessing green practices in hotels. The results reveal that while pleasant landscape design, the compatibility of the hotel’s architectural design with the natural environment, and energy-saving room keys are the three most highly ranked items; encouraging guests to use public transportation, preferring non-packaged goods, and informing guests about biological diversity around the hotel are given the lowest ranking as green initiatives. On the other hand, three factors (energy- and water-saving measures and informational efforts, visual and external environmental practices, and guestroom-related initiatives and recycling programmes) were extracted from the factor analysis.
Today, nature-based tourism is one of the important export items of tourism industry in many coun... more Today, nature-based tourism is one of the important export items of tourism industry in many countries such as Australia, Kenya, Nepal, and New Zealand. However, the nature-based tourism resources of Turkey cannot be promoted since they have not been identified and classified yet. The aim of this paper is to identify and assess the natural resources having tourism potential to be developed in the western part of Lake Van basin. The increasing environmental awareness among consumers has lead tourism managers and plannners to satisfy this type of tourists’ needs by searching new tourism resources. First step for the effective planning is to systematically determine the resources and assess the values of them. The assessment criteria in this paper are attraction levels, infrastructure, level of environmental degradation, and accessibility. The 23 natural resources in the research area were classified based on Priskin's control list approach by applying several experts’ opinions and making journey to the sites. The places of nature-based tourism attractions were determined with Global Positioning System and this information were evaluated in the Geographic Information System based program of Mapinfo and hundreds of pictures were taken from all perspectives in the research area. The findings of research revealed that the sites have middle and high levels of attraction and low level of infrastructure. In addition to that, the results show that accessibility is not a inhibitory factor for the tourists to reach the destination and the level of degradation is very low in the area. Therefore, a planned research approach is necessary to investigate the areas with high tourism development potential and relatively untouched.
The aim of this article is to explore tourists’ perceptions about green initiatives in eco-friend... more The aim of this article is to explore tourists’ perceptions about green initiatives in eco-friendly hotels. The research sample was randomly chosen among domestic and international tourists staying in green certified hotels in Turkey. A single page questionnaire was conducted with tourists in the period of June-December 2012. In addition to questions related to demographic profile of tourists, perception of tourists about green practices of hotels that are determined in the certification category of Turkey was searched. The findings indicate that tourists are more concerned with tangible things when assessing green practices in hotels. The results reveal that while pleasant landscape design, the compatibility of the hotel’s architectural design with the natural environment, and energy-saving room keys are the three most highly ranked items; encouraging guests to use public transportation, preferring non-packaged goods, and informing guests about biological diversity around the hotel are given the lowest ranking as green initiatives. On the other hand, three factors (energy- and water-saving measures and informational efforts, visual and external environmental practices, and guestroom-related initiatives and recycling programmes) were extracted from the factor analysis.
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Papers by Faruk Alaeddinoglu
perception of tourists about green practices of hotels that are determined in the certification category of Turkey was searched. The findings indicate that tourists are more concerned with tangible things when assessing green practices in hotels. The results reveal that while pleasant landscape design, the compatibility of the hotel’s
architectural design with the natural environment, and energy-saving room keys are the three most highly ranked items; encouraging guests to use public transportation,
preferring non-packaged goods, and informing guests about biological diversity around the hotel are given the lowest ranking as green initiatives. On the other hand, three factors (energy- and water-saving measures and informational efforts, visual and external environmental practices, and guestroom-related initiatives and recycling programmes) were extracted from the factor analysis.
perception of tourists about green practices of hotels that are determined in the certification category of Turkey was searched. The findings indicate that tourists are more concerned with tangible things when assessing green practices in hotels. The results reveal that while pleasant landscape design, the compatibility of the hotel’s
architectural design with the natural environment, and energy-saving room keys are the three most highly ranked items; encouraging guests to use public transportation,
preferring non-packaged goods, and informing guests about biological diversity around the hotel are given the lowest ranking as green initiatives. On the other hand, three factors (energy- and water-saving measures and informational efforts, visual and external environmental practices, and guestroom-related initiatives and recycling programmes) were extracted from the factor analysis.