Evaluation of rural tourism projects supported by European Union Rural Development Program (IPARD) in Bursa region

Rural development has an important role in the development and socio-economic structure of countries. "Rural Tourism", an important concepts of rural development, has become one of the important tools in the field of development with its geographical, socio-cultural, natural richness and historical factors. Due to the IPARD program created by the European Union (EU) to support candidate and potential candidate countries, there is a great change in agriculture and rural development in Turkey. In the European Union membership process, many regional investments have carried out in through the Agricultural Development Support Institution (ARDSI), which was established in Turkey in line with all these goals. These investments are accompanied by employment, regional development, migration, rural-urban relationship, etc. It makes many positive improvements. The main purpose of this research is to determine the general characteristics of rural tourism operations supported by ARDSI within the scope of IPARD program in Bursa region, to evaluate their demographic structures and to examine the projects in general terms. As a result of this study, it was determined that there are 10 projects supported by ARDSI within the scope of IPARD I and IPARD II program in Bursa region. It has been determined that 6 of the projects are within the scope of IPARD I program and 4 of them are within the scope of IPARD II.The results of this study obtained from survey data analyzed with SPSS program and macro programs of Visual Basic. It is seen that the number of young entrepreneurs in current projects is insufficient and the number of female investors has increased in recent years. It has been determined that subjects such as education level and professional competence have a direct impact on the installed capacity and sustainability of enterprises. It has been observed that the sustainability of EU supported projects and their impact on rural development are positive, and it has been determined that the number of projects in the field of rural tourism is insufficient. It has been concluded that sufficient promotion, information and guidance should be made by using the attractiveness of the Bursa region in order to open up new investments.