Religious tourism potential of the province of İzmir and its evaluation

Today, religion tourism is an increasingly important type of tourism among alternative tourism types. Religion tourism is constantly and rapidly changing. Destinations wishing to get a share in the religion tourism market need to adapt to religion tourism and changing conditions. It is also inevitable that they develop various strategies within the religion tourism market to increase their competitiveness. Although İzmir has the resources of religion tourism at regional and global scale, it has not reached an important position in the religion tourism market in our country and in the world today. Undoubtedly, the most important reason for this situation is that both the city and the province's religion tourism potential is not fully known and the potential is not transformed into a tourist product sufficiently. In this master thesis which consists of five parts; In the first part, a conceptual framework for religion tourism has been established. In the second part, the tourism attraction, services and customer profile of İzmir have been analyzed and the basis for the third part has been formed. In the third chapter, the current status, potential, competition analysis and swot analysis of religion tourism in İzmir are conducted. The fourth section is devoted to the findings of the survey and interview study. In the fifth and last chapter, integration and route building issues in religion tourism are discussed and supported with examples. This section is completed with the problems and solutions of religion tourism. The most important aim of this master thesis is to reveal the potential of religion tourism in İzmir and to shed light on the best evaluation of this potential. In order to determine the current status and potential of religion tourism in Izmir, interviews and questionnaires were applied within the scope of qualitative and quantitative research methods (interview 20 participants, survey 13 participants). By analyzing the questionnaire, 13 existing religion tourism works belonging to three heavenly religions were identified and 38 works belonging to three heavenly religions with religion tourism potential were determined within the information obtained from the interview. In addition, as a result of the survey, important information about the profile of tourists participating in religion tourism was determined. Thus, İzmir's religion tourism potential was evaluated not only in terms of artifacts but also in terms of the profile of tourists participating in this type of tourism. In this thesis, religion tourism routes of İzmir province which will contribute to converting potential religion tourism works into touristic products are designed. These routes suggest that the monuments of the three celestial religions should be followed along a certain route. Routes are included in the map of İzmir city center and province.