The awareness of thermal tourism reseources in the marketing of Denizli as a destination: A research on university students

Denizli is one of the most outstanding thermal cities with its geological resources in our country. Denizli overtakes many thermal cities with its thermal resources which locates around historical artfacts. Denizli is aimed at being a sustained cure travel city by contributing socio-cultural and economical life withthe thermal tourism centers which were declared by the ministry of culture and tourism. In order to achieve this purpose, destination marketing activities are carried out becoming permanent in the minds of people with thermal tourism resources. The purpose of this study is to determine the awarennes of the students studying in Denizli about the thermal tourism activities of Denizli. In this context, the data oblained by applying survey on 450 students by studying in Denizli city centre was analyzed. While frequency, arithmatic mean and percent valves were used in the analys of descriptive data, in determing meaningful differences among variables, nonparametric test, Mann-Whitney U Test and Kruskal Walls H test were benefiled because the data wasn't normally disturbuted in determining meaningful differences among variables. According to the results of analyses, the hyppotheses showing the awareness of the students studying in Denizli, absout the thermal tourism activities of Denizli change meaningfolly according to their age, hometown information, life times in Denizli and the information resources they benefited from were accepted. Keywords: Destination Marketing, Thermal Tourism, Pamukkale