ence in the region’s economy, but it has in terms of social life. It also needs to be borne in mind that the local people have had little capital to invest and have experienced great diffi culty in entering the tourism industry.
Keywords: Community-based tourism, com-munity participation, impacts of tourism, Yenice County (YC).
INTRODUCTION
Tourism has been frequently taken as an alterna-tive option, in developing countries, to maintain the continuous development of the economy in re-mote or rural areas where the primary traditional industries are in decline (Ying and Zhou, 2007).
This is also true in Turkey, where a large number of rural and cultural tourism destinations have emerged since the 1990s. The need to break with routine has changed the monotony of traditional sea-sand-and-sun tourism in Turkey.
At the beginning of the 21st century, a change was observed in the motivations of tourists, new tourists, or “postfordist tourists” (Urry, 1995, cited in Fiorello and Bo, 2012), who rejected mass tour-ism and demanded alternative forms of tourtour-ism.
New tourists are attracted by opportunities that offer authentic contact with other cultures and sustained traditions. They are looking for an un-familiar scene, which involves a new landscape as well as the discovery of new cultural elements and civilizations. Indeed, these travelers do not want to limit their contacts with the host community to commercial contacts. They appreciate locally grown products and traditional dishes. In reaction
ABSTRACT
This study is intended to contribute to the com-munity-based tourism literature in Turkey via the detailed analysis of tourism development in Yenice County (YC). YC, whose tourism industry has been growing over the last fi ve years, is a region in which nature-based tourism has been developing. It at-tracts tourists for its unique ecosystem, unspoilt forest, and biodiversity. The main aim of this study is to fi nd out the effects of the tourism industry in the local community, to determine the perceptions of local people towards tourism, and to identify the contributions of tourism from the viewpoint of local authorities. The study involves primary data obtained from open, qualitative interviews;
most of the quantitative data were obtained from household surveys, whereas much of the qualita-tive data came from local authorities. The results of the survey indicate that the local people show a positive attitude towards the increasing num-ber of tourists in the region because they have high expectations of the tourists on a long-term basis. The results also show that the economic ben-efi ts from nature-based tourism in YC are smaller than is commonly expected. In addition, some so-cial changes can be observed in the area, such as the changing mentality towards tourists and strangers, even if the level of touristic develop-ment is not high enough. Although residents of Yenice are very hospitable to strangers, when they fi rst saw visitors in their area they avoided building friendly relationships with them, es-pecially with the foreign tourists, because they were not in favor of what they saw as unconven-tional behavior. The development of the tourism industry has not yet created a noticeable
differ-to the destructive impact of mass differ-tourism and the expectations of the new tourists, alternative forms of tourism have developed, such as pro-poor tour-ism, ecotourtour-ism, and CBT (Fiorello and Bo, 2012).
This could also have been due to knowledge of new destinations, up to that point unexplored by tour-ists, and the search for a destination with a greater focus on local customs, history, ethics, and a par-ticular culture (López-Guzmán et al., 2011). In this sense, unexpected local culture, unspoilt natural beauty, wildlife, and the habitat of the destination are looked on as means of enriching the enjoyment of increasingly active tourists who are looking for new experiences and adventure (López-Guzmán et al., 2011).
The effect of all this is that rural areas are un-dergoing a transformation that is changing both the local economic structure on the one hand and its traditional production activities on the other (López-Guzmán et al., 2011). For many years, tour-ism was considered as a magic formula for promot-ing regional development and reducpromot-ing poverty in developing countries (Mowforth and Munt, 2003;
UNWTO, 2007; Telfer and Sharpley, 2008). Rural areas, with unique natural and unexplored cultural resources, have a great opportunity to attract these tourists who are looking for new and extraordinary experiences. Therefore communities that have in-digenous cultures could benefi t from the tourism industry.
The community-based tourism that has devel-oped in rural areas is a fundamental tool for eco-nomic development and increasing the standard of living of those communities. It contributes to the livelihoods of people living in rural areas. The main benefi ts of community tourism are the direct economic impact on families, socioeconomic im-provements, and sustainable diversifi cation of life-styles (Manyara and Jones, 2007; Rastegar, 2010).
It is possible to create businesses selling goods and services by means of the area´s own cultural and environmental resources, offering low-scale op-portunities for job creation, especially for women and young people (López-Guzmán et al., 2011).
Turkey’s tourism policy encourages the con-servation of natural and cultural resources and focuses on providing local communities, mainly from rural areas, with direct and indirect benefi ts from tourism and promoting employment, devel-opment, and services in those rural areas. In the Tourism Strategy of Turkey 2023 (kulturturizm.
gov.tr, 2013), a special emphasis is placed on the diversifi cation of tourism products, promotion of new destinations, development of rural areas, and
spreading the economic benefi ts of tourism to all parts of the country. New destinations that feature unspoilt nature and a well-preserved local culture are promoted in this strategy, therefore aiming to offer communities new employment opportuni-ties, in order that local people will benefi t from the tourism industry as an economic tool and long-term sustainability will be fostered. In this sense, the Western Black Sea region has been designated an ecotourism development zone. These develop-ments have given impetus to the local authorities to develop the rural economy by means of the tourism industry. At the workshop on Sustainable Tourism for Yenice Forests, which was held on 24–25 May 2012 as part of the preparation of the Nature-based Tourism Master Plan of the Western Black Sea Re-gion by the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs Regional Directorate of Sinop, an action plan was prepared for the development of tourism while con-centrating on the needs of local people, the sustain-ability of the environment and local culture, and presenting strategic plans to improve the tourism industry in the region.
Healy (1994) observes that there is an exten-sive literature on tourism and employment crea-tion, but relatively few studies have involved rural areas affected by nature tourism in developing na-tions. Taking into consideration the importance of community-based tourism for rural areas and the development of the local community, this pa-per has three main objectives: (1) to determine the local community´s perceptions towards tour-ism, its assessment of tourism and of its potential improvement in the area; (2) to present residents’
evaluation of tourism resources in the area, as well as of the infrastructure and accommodation facili-ties for the development of tourism; (3) to identify the opportunities for local economic development through tourism as well as the constraints of the region.
LITERATURE
The concept of community-based tourism (CBT) emerged in the mid-1980s and can be found in the early work of Murphy (1985), where the relation-ship between tourism and local communities was analyzed, as well as in subsequent studies (Murphy and Murphy, 2004; Richards and Hall, 2000). In-ternationally a number of different terms are used for very similar activities, including rural tourism, ecotourism, and pro-poor tourism. Typically these types of tourism have similar objectives (APEC, 2010).
CBT is based on the creation of tourist products characterised by community participation in their development. It emerged as a possible solution to the negative impacts of mass tourism in develop-ing countries, and was, at the same time, a strat-egy for community organization in order to attain better living conditions. Its core idea is the inte-gration of hotel management, food and beverages, complementary services, and tourism manage-ment, but also includes other subsystems (infra-structure, health, education, and environment) as main characteristics, thus presenting a sustainable development project created by the community, and encouraging an interrelation between the lo-cal community and visitors as a key element in the development of a tourist product (López-Guzmán et al., 2011).
CBT is a form of “local” tourism, favoring lo-cal service providers and suppliers and focused on interpreting and communicating the local culture and environment. Community-based tourism has been popular as a means of supporting biodiversity conservation, particularly in developing countries, and of linking livelihoods with preserving biodi-versity while reducing rural poverty and achiev-ing both objectives sustainably. CBT is generally small scale and involves interactions between visi-tors and the host community that are particularly suited to rural and regional areas (APEC, 2010). It is certainly an effective way of implementing policy coordination, avoiding confl icts between different actors in tourism, and obtaining synergies based on the exchange of knowledge, analysis, and abil-ity among all members of the communabil-ity (Kibicho, 2008).
The structure of CBT can be broken down into four categories. First, there are small tourist offi c-es, which in some cases also work as tourist guidc-es, and whose are not yet particularly relevant due to a lack of planning in the majority of the areas that tourists visit. Secondly, there are institutions that collaborate with the local tourism industry, mainly local public administrations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and universities. Thirdly, there are direct service companies, which can be further divided into two groups: accommodation and food and beverage; and shops selling local products, which are becoming increasingly impor-tant. Finally, there are various transport and fi nan-cial businesses (López-Guzmán et al., 2011).
CBT development can bring many potential ben-efi ts for a community’s economy, society, and environment. Job creation and employment are important economic benefi ts, as for many commu-nity members employment means stable jobs and
regular income generation (COMCEC, 2013b). For example, in Mt Kenya National Park local people work in the tourism industry as guides and por-ters for climbers as well as hikers. The Mt Kenya Guides and Porters Safari Club (GPSC), a commu-nity-based organization, runs tours along various routes with the guidance of local people. GPSC jobs represent one of the few sources of monetary income for porters and guides living around Mt Kenya National Park, and indeed may be the only source (Steinicke and Neuburger, 2012).
CBT has the potential to facilitate the expan-sion of the target market for local products. For example, the increased tourism infl ow to Peru’s Taquile Island contributed to the fame and income-generation capacity of traditional weaving practices (Mitchell and Reid, 2001). As another instance, the Khama Rhino Sanctuary Trust in the Central Dis-trict of Botswana implemented a unique Communi-ty-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) program that involved the conservation of natural resources (e.g., rhinos) and the improvement of lo-cal community livelihoods. The sourcing and pur-chasing of goods and services from the local com-munity have resulted in small, medium, and micro enterprises, as well as some informal-sector opera-tors, incurring economic benefi ts from the Sanctu-ary’s operations and visiting tourists. In addition, tourists have increased their purchases of local arts and crafts that are sold in villages (Stone and Stone, 2011). However, if tourism development is not as-sessed, planned, and managed effectively with the communities involved, it may also come with costs to the society and the environment and the dynam-ics between them (APEC, 2010). Figure 1 shows the benefi ts and costs of CBT for the local people.
CBT provides planning for tourism in order to safeguard the destination’s cultural heritage and enhance its natural heritage while at the same time improving the socio-economic welfare of its com-munity. For example, in Manyallaluk, Australia, tourism development represents a true communi-ty-based approach. The Manyallaluk community prevented cultural erosion and protected their in-tegrity and privacy through planning and well-established rules that were effectively communi-cated to tourists. The community separated sites that were open to visitors from actual living spaces and prohibited photography of community homes (COMCEC, 2013b).
CBT is on the agenda of the Turkish tourism industry, in that some successful projects have been implemented and have brought a number of benefi ts to local communities. For example, the Çoruh Valley Eastern Anatolia Development
Pro-ject (TDEAP), implemented by the UNDP Turkey Offi ce in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, was started in 2007. The general goal of this project was to contribute to the living stand-ards of local people by enhancing tourist activities in the Çoruh Valley in northeastern Turkey. Within this framework, the Çoruh Valley has been hosting many activities, namely ceramic workshops, fam-ily pension training, gastronomy festivals, bird-watching festivals, rafting, trekking, and mountain biking. As a result, special interest tourism has been promoted in the region and international and domestic tourist fl ows to the Çoruh Valley have in-creased remarkably. With respect to income gen-eration, local people have benefi ted from tourism activities as the owners of tourist accommodation facilities (COMCEC, 2013a).
The Nallıhan Developing Rural Tourism Pro-ject was initiated in 2010 by the cooperation of the local municipality, NGOs, and local citizens in order to utilize the potential of Nallıhan as a rural tourism destination. In this project, some of the
inactive governmental and private buildings have been turned into accommodation and others have been converted into facilities where local products are sold and local food is served to tourists (COM-CEC, 2013a).