A research on the convention hotel standards and design criteria: The possibilities of convention tourism in Bursa

Changing production-consumption habits led tourism to become a rapidly growing and developing sector in the world. The development of tourism sector allow different countries to come together for cultural interactions and bring out the concept of alternative tourism. The fact that people come together for various purposes, organize meetings to exchange information and want to have these meetings in a different place from their cities, revealed congress tourism, as an alternative tourism. Today, convention tourism has become an important competition area among cities due to its strong economic, social and cultural benefits. The most preferred venue for convention tourism is convention hotels, which are designed to host national and international meetings and which are the largest of the accomodation facilities. The convention hotels which provide different activities, enable the use of city residents as well as congress participants. For this reason, convention hotels should be designed to meet the needs of convention tourism to attract more congresses to that region. The aim of this study is to determine the standards and design criteria of convention hotels through the analysis of most preferred convention hotels in different countries, to create a guide for design of new convention hotels and explore the potential of Bursa for convention tourism. Within the scope of the thesis, convention hotels were analyzed according to their location, architectural design, spatial organization and spatial standards. A total of 10 convention hotels from North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Asia-Europe countries and a total of 2 from Bursa were examined, interviews were conducted with relevant people regarding current state of Bursa hotels in terms of convention tourism. As a result, based on the analysis of most preferred hotels and interviews conducted, the prominent design criteria and standards in convention hotels have been put forward and recommendations have been developed for convention hotel design.