Determination of criteria and indicators for sustainable ecotourism management in protected areas (Camili Biosphere reserve)

In recent years, many countries have adopted the concept of sustainable development in the face of the destruction of natural and cultural resources along with rapid industrialization and have sought to adapt this understanding to different sectors. In this process, especially in the tourism sector, sustainable tourism types such as ecotourism have started to become important. Ecotourism is a type of tourism that protects wildlife and vegetation, supports providing employment and income generation of local people with the income obtained, and causes the least negative effect on the environment and local people. Furthermore, the applicability and sustainability of ecotourism activities in protected areas that are considered the primary areas to be used for ecotourism purposes have also started to become more prominent, and the concept of sustainable ecotourism has also started to be on the agenda more frequently. To ensure that sustainable ecotourism activities in protected areas can be carried out rationally, the sustainability of these activities needs to be described, measured, monitored and evaluated, and the criteria and indicators are used to this end. Although many sets of criteria and indicators that will serve the purpose of sustainable ecotourism management have been developed worldwide, a set of criteria and indicators that will serve this purpose has not been developed yet in Turkey. This study aimed to develop a set of criteria and indicators for sustainable ecotourism management at the national level by considering Turkey's unique and specific social, economic, and ecological differences and to investigate the opportunities to use this developed set in the sustainable management of a protected area (Camili Biosphere Reserve). As the starting point of the national level of the study, a set of 12 criteria and 68 indicators prepared based on the sets of criteria and indicators of the WTO and UNWTO was used. With the repeated questionnaires applied within the scope of the three-stage Delphi method, a set of criteria and indicators, which was based on the recommendations of experts gathered in 4 groups, including forestry organization, academicians, tourism sector non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the relevant ministries (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and Ministry of Environment and Urbanization), and resulted in consensus, was achieved. At the first stage of the Delphi method, the experts defined new criteria and indicators in addition to the existing starting set. At the second stage, the indicators related to the criteria adopted as a result of the first stage were analyzed, and the relevant criteria and indicators were evaluated in terms of significance level and measurability. It was determined that the criterion of the protection of natural resources and biological diversity, which was mostly emphasized and adopted in ecotourism activities, in the set of criteria and indicators determined at the first stage of the Delphi method was also the criterion which was mostly emphasized and adopted at the second stage of the Delphi method. At the third and final stage, the Delphi method was terminated, and feedback was provided to the experts. The percentage of participation, median, interquartile range, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and factor analysis methods were used as the consensus criteria in the Delphi method. Eventually, a set of national criteria and indicators consisting of 11 criteria and 101 indicators was defined for sustainable ecotourism management in protected areas in Turkey. In the second part of the study in which it was aimed to adapt the set of criteria and indicators determined at the national level to the Camili Biosphere Reserve, the relevant set of criteria and indicators was prioritized for the area through the opinions of local experts gathered in 4 groups, including local administrators and GEF project workers, NGOs and tour operators, the people of Camili who earn direct income, and academicians by using the AHP method. In the last part aimed at determining whether the ecotourism activities in the Camili Biosphere Reserve were carried out sustainably, the sustainability assessment of the area was performed based on the opinions of the relevant group of representatives who would perform the assessment in 5 groups, including local administrators, GEF project workers, hostel owners, NGO representatives, and DOKA experts. In the selection of the most important indicators in the Camili Biosphere Reserve, the indicators that would represent the area were determined by averaging the normalized indicator values obtained in the common ranking and by deciding on the selection of indicators with normalized indicator values equal to or higher than this average value. Within the context of the indicators considering the ecotourism activities carried out in the Camili Biosphere Reserve, it was concluded that the ecotourism activities in the area were positively sustainable with a total score of 95.64 and with an average of 69.1% and that the sustainable management of the area was successful. It was observed that positive sustainable changes occurred in the criteria of socio-economic benefits provided to local people, local participation, financial structure, environmental education and practices and visitor satisfaction, especially the level of awareness and perception of the area among 11 criteria in the ecotourism activities in the Camili Biosphere Reserve. However, local people with the public, communications must be made, a balance must be struck between the locally preferred and the income and selection from ecotourism and should be geared towards institutional and financial education.in the Camili Biosphere Reserve.