Determination of ecoturism potential with ecos method in Kastamonu provincial borders of Küre Mountains National Park

The desire to move away from the city life emerges due to the settlements brought about by today's urbanization, stress in business life and psychological pressures in social life. In line with this request, demand for ecotourism, which is a sustainable based tourism form for natural areas, is increasing rapidly. İmplementation of ecotourism activities; to gain awareness of nature conservation, to ensure the sustainable use of resource values, the needs of the local people and the determination of their natural use potential is based. Accordingly, the development of proposals for ecotourism activities is gaining momentum. In this study, it is aimed to determine the potential of ecotourism potential of Kastamonu province of Küre Mountains National Park's (KMNP) which has great importance on global and national scale and to develop strategies for sustainable development approaches accordingly. In this study, Ecotourism Opportunity Spectrum (ECOS), was used as an application tool. Rapid Rural Apprasial (RRA) technique, which is a phase of the ECOS method, supported the participation of relevant stakeholders such as local people and local managers. HKD interviews, land surveys and bureau studies have played a role in determining the ecotourism potential of 55 villages in the Buffer Zone of KDMP. The potentials and strategies have been developed within the framework of the 5 main components of the ECOS method: natural landscape attractiveness, accessibility, touristic infrastructure opportunities, touristic superstructure opportunities and socio-cultural landscape attractiveness. These strategies focus on the subjects like; decrease in young population, lack of human resources, deficiencies in services including basic requirements such as accommodation and catering needs, economic and infrastructure problems.