Tourism attractivenesses of and around Lake Salda

Lake Salda, with an area of 44 km2 and a depth of 184 metres, is located at a 4 km distance from the town of Yeşilova, city of Burdur. Lake Salda and its surrounding area has an important potential for tourism with its natural and human environmental attractions. The goal of this research is to promote Lake Salda and its surrounding area for its potential value for tourism, and to help the area to be better-known in tourism and to enable further developments therein by detecting and suggesting solutions for the problems faced in the area in terms of tourism. For this purpose, we used methods of field observations and making use of documentary data from respective institutions and organisations. Lake Salda is also considered to be similar to Maldives with its turquoise colour, where blue and green meet. Climate and geographical formations around the lake allows for various tourist activities. Many sustainable alternative tourist activities are available in the area such as water sports like sailing, surfing, scuba diving thanks to geographical characteristics of the Lake water; paragliding, skiing, botany, ornithology, camping, mountain hiking, bike tours, health tourism. Owing to its geographical attractions, Lake Salda and its surroundings are declared to be a natural site area and a tourism centre. Despite the rich tourism potential of and around Lake Salda, various reasons such as insufficient transport and accommodation opportunities, various environmental problems around the Lake, limitations of promotion and publicity work as well as public and private investment, caused the area to be lesser-known in tourism sector and to have a slow development. In order for the area researched to be an important tourism centre, the problems aforementioned should be resolved and necessary planning and investment operations should be completed with an analysis and synthesis of the natural, human, economical and geographical characteristics of the area. Key Words: Lake Salda, Natural Site, Alternative Tourism, Sustainable Tourism Maldives