Event tourism and perceived impacts as a destination marketing element - The case of Istanbul

Events take place between destination attractions and provides updated information about cultural, social and historical values. Hence the events are important element that could be used for marketing of destinations. Events have some positive and negative impacts on destinations.The main purpose of this study is to reveal the socio-economic and destination marketing impacts of events on destinations. İstanbul was chosen as a study field since events are organized in İstanbul intensively and the research was conducted on fair organizations organizing events and travel agencies holding important positions in tourism. The research was carried out by survey. In research, 316 A-group travel agencies employees and 74 fair organizations employees were attained. The collected data was analyzed by using factor analysis, frequency, t-test and ANOVA tests in SPSS 15.0 and the conclusions were made by accepting the significance level as 0,05.In research, as findings; socio-economic impacts and destination marketing impacts are revealed. In the results of findings the impacts are named as socio-economic; community cohesiveness, economic benefits, social incentives and social costs. At the end of the results of analysis, it has been attained that the events in Istanbul have not any contributions to civic projects but build community pride, increase the crime rates. According to Doxey?s irritation index, employees in fair organizations and travel agencies have level of worries and contradictions about the meeting of locals and tourists. In the destination marketing perceptions, it is attained that events are used as an element in destination marketing and it is attained that events strengthen destination image, destination brand, destination position and increase the recognition of destination. In the light of findings, it is revealed that the events can be used as an element of marketing and are reinforces of destination image, destination brand and destination recognition.Key Words: Destinations marketing, Destination marketing impact, Event tourism, Socio-economic impact.