An Investigation of the supply potential and improvement of congress potential of İzmir

Master Program with ThesisAn Investigation of the Supply Potential and Improvement of CongressPotential of İzmirCeylan ERDOĞANDokuz Eylul UniversityInstitute of Social SciencesDepartment of Tourism ManagementABSTRACTAdvances in science and technology and increase in word-wide trade, have affectedneed of people to travel for various meetings such as scientific congresses and trade fairs.Congress tourism includes the entire services from travel to accomodation and catering ofthese meetings. The main need of these people is to gather for various meetings and thecongress tourism is the organization and service of these gatherings.The congress tourism increase the period of leisure tourism of the region becouse of itsextend throughout a year. It serves to the high-revenue group resulting high spanding perperson. Besides, the congress tourism has positiv affect on advertisement of the region and thecity in international market.The congress tourism in a region does not show an instantaneous growth. Largeamount of investment is required for a city to become an atractive center of congress tourism.Both goverment and private investments are necessary. Presence of congress centers,availability of large hotels with congress rooms and their room capacity and the quality oftransportation to the region, its climate, cographic position all affect it?s potential of congresstourism.In this study, the growth of the congress tourism in the world and in Turkey, and itsimportance in the Tourism Industry is examined. The potantional of congress tourism in Izmiris evaluated in detail.The study consists of three sections. In the first and second sections, the growth ofcongress tourism in the world and in Turkey, and its part in the alternative tourism sector ispresented. In the third section the potantial of congress tourism in Izmir is analysed based ondata collected from the tourism acents in Izmir and sorroundings.The present quality and quantity of the congress capacity of Izmir is tried to determinein this study. The quastionares are distributed for data collection and for assesment statisticalmethods of percentage and frequency distribution are made. The evaluation is conducted byusing SPSS package program for Windows 11.5. The study has shown that Izmir does nothave enough capacity for high quality congress tourism and lacks required congress centersand numbers of accomodations.