Destination competition in the scope of sustainable tourism: A model proposal on Northern Saros Gulf

The way to sustainable development is to adopt a sustainable understanding in all sectors. In touristic areas, the primary purpose is often economic and environmental effects are neglected. Researchers such as Ritchie and Crouch (2003) and Hassan (2000) emphasized the relationship between sustainability and the competitiveness of a tourism destination and suggested that sustainability can increase competitiveness. For this reason, it is important to create a competitive model that ensures the sustainability of environmental values in terms of maintaining the competitiveness of the destination. This study aims to introduce sustainability indicators to the Richie, Crouch (2000) model and to test their role in explaining the competitiveness of a tourism destination. The aim of the study is to develop a model proposal that will provide destination competition by examining the northern shores of the Saros Gulf in the scope of sustainable tourism approach. In the first part of the study, the literature was reviewed and the concepts of sustainability and sustainable tourism were discussed. In the second part, destination competition was discussed and destination competition models in the literature were examined. In the third chapter, the North Saros Gulf, which constitutes the research area, is was discussed. The fourth chapter includes quantitative and qualitative research data and analysis. In the quantitative research, the results of the face-to-face surveys conducted with 585 visitors and local people in order to determine the competitiveness of the Northern Saros Gulf were included. In this section, the competitiveness of the Northern Saros Gulf destination and the model designed for sustainable tourism were tested with confirmatory factor analysis. While the models in the related literature included natural and cultural resources, artificial resources, supporting factors & resources, situational conditions and demand conditions, our study included natural resources, socio-cultural resources, situational conditions and supportive resources for destination competition. It emerged that the sustainable tourism factor which is formed by socio-cultural and economic sustainability, direct environmental sustainability and indirect environmental sustainability should be considered as an independent factor affecting other factors. In qualitative research, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 17 participants from different stakeholders through a semi-structured interview form, and the findings obtained in the quantitative research were supported by the information obtained in this section of the research. Finally, suggestions were presented on what to do to increase the competitiveness of the destination by analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data about the competitiveness of the Northern Saros Gulf destination.