Analysis of the suitability of the English textbooks prepared for the tourism students in terms of target audience

Tourism is one of the fast-developing sectors in the world. The same development is occurring in Turkey. One in every five people in the world participating in tourism activities brings economic vitality to their countries. Although the number of tourists coming to Turkey tends to increase, the tourism income does not increase at the same level. One of the main reasons for this problem is the lack of foreign language skills of employees working in this sector. Efficient foreign language education depends on various criteria. These are teaching staff, method, physical conditions or materials used in the language education. Textbooks prepared for target groups are one of the most important elements of foreign language education. Therefore, this study focused on the suitability of the textbooks, which are prepared for tourism graduate students as the target audience. The sample book called English for International Tourism is aimed to test the suitability for tourism students as being the target group. This study further offers some suggestions about how English textbooks to be prepared for tourism-focused foreign language education through the results obtained from the data analysis. The introduction part of the thesis gives general information about the study. In the second part, the related literature is searched and then, the identified academic studies are analyzed one by one. Thus, the authenticity of the study is tried to be revealed. In the third part, the importance of the relationship between foreign language skills and tourism is given in detail. In the fourth part, the basic features of textbooks and advantages are mentioned about choosing textbook in terms of students and teachers. In this way, the importance of textbooks in education and training is strongly emphasized. In the fifth part, the aim of the study is presented and in the sixth part, the method used in the study is explained in detail. The seventh part shows the study's application. In this part, the sample is analyzed according to the criteria determined in the method section and the results obtained are given in the last part of the study. Moreover, in the last part some suggestions are made about how target-oriented textbooks should be.