City tourism and culture: A research on foreign tourists' evaluations on Istanbul as a cultural destination

City tourism which is consisting of different dimensions such as gaining cultural experience, sport and art activities, shopping and business trips, is increasing rapidly all over the world. The main focus of this study is city tourism taking place in Istanbul?s current situation. Throughout this study, not only city tourism concept, but also consumer behaviour in tourism and also cultural tourism issues, especially Istanbul has been analyzed in detail as a cultural city. Similarly, such a field research is carried out in order to reflect the general profiles, the trends of foreign tourists and their perspectives on Istanbul for tourists visiting here for a certain time period.The research data was compiled for 516 tourists who were on board using both Istanbul Ataturk and Sabiha Gokcen Airports. Likewise, the survey made for the tourists was evaluated through using frequency analysis, log linear analysis, factor analysis, and independent samples t test and variance analysis respectively.The findings obtained show that the tourists who visited Istanbul within the research are predominantly among young and middle age people having higher education and high income as well. Apart from these, not only the aims, the preferences, the cultural activities being attended and the satisfaction level of cultural needs of the tourists who had visited Istanbul in a certain time period was assigned, but also throughout this study, Istanbul?s cultural city tourism was revealed and some recommendations were presented in order to develop Istanbul as a cultural destination.