The contribution of tourism to the development of mountainous regions,case study: Erzurum, Erzincan, Bayburt region of Turkey

Mountainous regions have a global importance with their potentials like difficult topography, changing climate, biological, cultural and ethnical diversities, unique landscape values. However, besides these positive qualities, they have some limitations due to the above listed values, these areas are less developed in many parts of the world. There are too many researches done on how the sustainable development, particularly in mountainous areas can be realized, and different development models for mountainous areas are being developed.In this thesis, starting from the existing undeveloped situation of mountainous areas, and the reasons of being far behind their development targets, the question to define the route to be followed necessary for the development of these areas on regional scale is answered. For this process, the cities of Erzurum, Erzincan, and Bayburt, which are located in regionally the least developed part of Turkey are chosen. Within the scope of this study, with defining the potentials and limitations, which are descriptive, guiding and accelerative, the determination of the subjects having priority, particularly for the study area, was aimed. The effectivity of the tourism sector on the development of mountainous areas was discussed, the positive and negative outcomes of the sector on development were introduced by providing the measurement results of sustainability indicators, and the results obtained were evaluated with multi-criteria decision-making method and the subject heading to be worked on, were defined within the strategic plan proposals. The most important finding of this thesis is ?mountainous areas could be developed with tourism sector?. For the effectivity of the sector, the way which must be followed, the strategies and the actors are presented as the basis of the ?evaluation? chapter of the thesis.The contribution to the science of this thesis can be put in words as; In case of failure in getting qualified and enough data for measuring sustainability indicators, ?an alternative method? proposal is developed and prepared a key study model for future works. Considering the unavailability of an effective data bank for rural areas, as in developing countries like Turkey and less developed countries yet, it is so clear that the data for mountainous regions can hardly be available for any kind of research and study. This thesis work is hoped to fulfill the gab both in guiding to access the restricted but valuable data, as well as to define the sound conclusions derived from the limited data.