Evaluation of network society and sharing culture in the city cultural tourism through the approach of tourism geography: a case study of İzmir

Even if the early forms of tourism (belief, health, various sporting and economic activities, etc.) are based on ancient history (Ancient Egypt and Classical Greek), the early forms of modern tourism and the activities can be regarded as Grand Tours which were carried out by young nobles between the 16th and 19th centuries. Soon afterwards the modern tourism era, characterized by package tours, has begun. The modern era has brought tourism industrialization and enabled the development of market structures that supply goods and services in specialized areas such as every business line that has become an industry. The stakeholders that constitute and supply the modern tourism industry's transportation, accommodation, food-beverage and activity have become global scale and made tourism activities a characteristic feature of modern societies. Transition from the modern to the postmodern era has been an alternative to traditional market structures established by the supply of goods and services' stakeholders. One of the alternative market structures is the modern tourism industry. Individuals who have acquired all travel-related requirements from traditional stakeholders in modern tourism activities has been able to access all sorts of goods and services that are needed before, during, and after travel through social media tools. This has become one of the most important dynamics of postmodern life with the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Postmodern tourism activities have emerged becouse of supply and demand of transportation, accommodation, food and beverage and activity by ordinary people. The widespread use of network society and sharing culture in the horizontal and vertical directions has brought the development of postmodern tourism activities on a global scale and the rapid spread of different geographies. The main aim of this study is to examine the impact of social media and its innovations (network society and culture of sharing) which have become an integral part of our postmodern world through new developments in communications (Web 1.0 to Web 2.0) and to reveal the formation, development and spread of the new tourism network. The thesis is composed of four chapters and has been dealt with in detail because it is a fairly new study topic. In this way, it is aimed to contribute to the tourism literature of our country with an up-to-date and original study. This work that consists of three elements related to tourism (transportation, food&beverage, activity) and more particularly accommodation focuses on Izmir reflections of CouchSurfing, the largest free room sharing platform on a global scale. The quantitative (398 online questionnaire) and qualitative (8 semi-structured interview) field work have been carried out in this dissertation. The main purpose of the study and all of the related inquiries have been carried out and the data handled are given in sub-headings. As a result of the study, it is concluded that postmodern tourism is dominated by well educated Generation Y individuals, sharing culture-economy is transformed into a lifestyle, tourism is seen as based on personal development, socio-cultural items are the primary motivation source, long-term relationships between peers are established and unifying side of travel has been uncovered. In addition, it has been determined that the traditional tourism corridor has been moved out of the core tourism attraction, the supply of accommodation has increased quantitatively and qualitatively, the sustainable tourism activities have been supported and the second wave of democratization has been experienced in tourism activities.