A conceptual model and a method for the measurement of cultural tourism development capacity:The Case of Bosphorus, İstanbul.

Culture which has been defined in different meanings within historical process and used instead of civilization in the past, become important as a major means providing transformation of cities today. The obligation of enlivening the economy again, creating employment and making this within a sharp competition environment brought forward the new policy and urban development strategies. Local governments, politicians and experts develop culture-based policies in order to brand cities' names by making their locations on the map clear and to create fictitious superiority based on competition over other cities. For this reason, cultural tourism undertakes an important role in increasing attractiveness of cities for potential investors, residents and visitors for providing economical development in cities. Culture tourism-oriented development understanding has started to be evolved from mere physical space oriented action area to a more integrated approach covering cultural and social issues, along with the change caused by globalization and information technologies in the world (Hall [1]; Montgomery [2]; Grodach and Loukaitou-Sideris, [3]; Evans [4]; Maintland [5]). This change in culture tourism-oriented urban development understanding has caused research methods presented in tourism researches to change. In 1980's, while cultural tourism researches were product of a quantitative approach within the scope of participant questionnaires turning into more static analyses and cultural heritage values, qualitative approaches concerning the structure of cultural tourism based on social class have started to be presented once production and consumption of cultural tourism shifted towards social and cultural aspects (Castellanos-Verdugo et al., [6]; Yoon [7]; Bolzoni [8]; Huning and Novy, [9]). In regions where tourism is developed or it is assumed to be developed, there are three active parties that take part in the establishment of perceptions and attitudes towards tourism. These parties are the residents of that place, tourism entrepreneurs and local authorities (Bolzoni, [8]: 20-21). But the literature review indicates that most of the studies conducted about tourism do not focus on these three parties, but on the economic effects of tourism and the tendencies and expectations of tourists. However, in order to implement tourism planning in a specific place, the stakeholders in that region should be analyzed first. Any touristic approach that ignores or confronts the stakeholders in the touristic region has no chance to be sustainable. Therefore, a new conceptual model and measurement method is suggested in this study in order to reveal how the culture based touristic development changed according to unique objective and subjective components of "residents", "place", and the "tourism sector" along with the type of relationship among these components. The revealed method is tested in Bosphorus Area which is selected because of its representation of international identity of Istanbul. For this purpose, the analytic evaluations of the data related with the objective indicators in order to reveal the attractiveness of neighborhoods within the study area for the cultural tourism is conducted. Then, a survey was implemented to receive the data about the objective and subjective indicators of both components in order to determine the cultural tourism support of the residents and tourism facilities in the study area. Data obtained about these three components were first made subject to basic components analysis (PCA). There are two reasons to select the PCA method at this stage: First, BCA is very useful to reveal the relation of variables with different data and second, it provides the opportunity to evaluate the multi-variable structure that reveals the culture focused tourism capacity by the basic factors and to evaluate with less and significant data statistically (Çokluk et.al.,[10]; Özbakır[11]). After PCA, Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method is used to express the component scores of the factors that determine the dimensions and the local authority dimension, tourism sector dimension and place dimension scores were obtained. Finally, the scores obtained for all three dimensions have been analyzed by PCA and WLC and the scores of neighborhoods within the study area for cultural tourism development capacity are revealed, and the research findings were discussed with the related literature support. According to the results of the study, it has been determined that the common factors that affect the support given by the residents and tourism facilities in a place to the cultural tourism are "perception of political environment", "positively perceived effects of tourism", "negatively perceived effects of tourism" and "the socio-cultural environment perception". It is remarkable that the most effective factor in both dimensions is the "perception of political environment". The factors that differentiate the both dimensions are the factors such as "physical environment perception", "participation in cultural activities" and "socio demographical structure" at local society dimension; and "economic environment perception", "commitment to the place" and "qualitative and quantitative features of tourism facilities" are the factors effective at tourism sector dimension. It is also determined that the factors effective for the attractiveness of the place in terms of cultural tourism are "tourism and culture infrastructure" and "historical, natural and physical environment". The suggested measurement method also reveals how the contribution levels of residents, place and the tourism facilities to the development of cultural tourism differ according to the sub regions. for instance, it has been determined that the more advantageous neighborhoods in the development of culture based tourism are Ortaköy, Bebek and Kurucesme within the borders of Besiktas county; and the neighborhoods relatively disadvantageous are Yalıköy, Anadolu Kavağı and Göksu within the borders of Beykoz county.