Cultural heritage tourism potential of the city of Ahlat

These days, people travel from their daily living life areas to different places for temporary periods. The rapid improvments and changes in the transportation and information areas have increased people's interest in knowing, understanding and seeing different cultures, and accordingly, the desire to know these regions has led to the emergence of "Cultural Tourism". Cultural heritage includes all signs of humanity for ages. Cultural tourism that develops as a result of tourists' interest in cultural heritage; initially started to develop with the visits of historical places, museums and ruins. Cultural heritage tourism, which develops as a result of tourists' interest in cultural heritage; It has developed primarily by visiting historical places, museums and ruins. Today, with the special interests and needs of tourists, seeing traditional architecture, watching dance genres and listening music as well as trading traditional handicrafts and to visiting fairs and festivals gained importance. Ahlat, which has traces of many civilizations from Assyrians to Urartians, Persians to Romans, Mongols to Turks during ages bears many material and spiritual cultural heritages that have survived up to now. In terms of meeting these cultural assets Ahlat has a unique diversity. In this study, it is aimed to determine the cultural heritage tourism potential of Ahlat,and by this way to use the resources better and to ensure that these cultural assets are protected and transferred to the next generations and taking a greater share from tourism. During the research, both qualitative data and quantitative data were used to create an explanatory mixed-pattern study. First of all in the research, the situation determined and the resources related to the subject are searched. After that, In the research, data about the research area were obtained by making on-site observations and unstructured interview forms. Apart from the many ornamented and written gravestones in the Seljuk Meydan Cemetery, which is in the Temporary List of World Cultural Heritage in Ahlat, there are five different historical cemeteries, twelve cupolas, four historical mosques, two cultural baths, two castles, two tombs and bridge, besides that caves, houses and many other cultural heritages have been identified in the area. As a result, it is possible to indicate that Ahlat is an open-air museum which acts as a bridge between Central Asian-Turkish culture and Anatolian Turkish-Islamic culture.