Interorganizational relationships in the tourism sector: A study in the context of community ecology

The subject of the study is to understand the functional relationship between different organizational forms belonging to the same population. Additionally, the study aims to examine the relationships between organizations at the macro-community level, and population ecology forms the fundamental theoretical framework of this study. The main purpose of the study in this context is to reveal the nature of the interactions between populations that are located in the same area, use similar resources, and have different forms. There are four thermal tourism regions in Afyonkarahisar (Gazlıgöl, Ömer-Gecek, Sandıklı-Hüdai, and Bolvadin Heybeli Spa areas). When considering the thermal tourism centers in Afyonkarahisar as a whole, it is possible to talk about the presence and gathering of different organizational populations. In the study, hotels and timeshare properties with two different forms of populations in the Ömer-Gecek, Gazlıgöl, Sandıklı, and Bolvadin thermal basins in Afyonkarahisar were identified as the research area. This study was conducted based on secondary data. Data was collected from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Provincial Directorates of Tourism, and local authorities to determine population dynamics. The data obtained was tested using the Lotka-Volterra model, and the study examined the statistical significance of parameter estimates. As a result of this analysis, the presence of a mutualistic relationship between thermal hotels and timeshare properties in Afyonkarahisar has been revealed.