The importance of women cooperatives in sustainable rural tourism in Turkey and analysis of their financial performance

Rural tourism and women's cooperatives are two important components of national sustainable development. Both of them play an active role in a more equitable income distribution, contribute to the development of social life, and minimize ecological degradation. While sustainable rural tourism creates many opportunities for women cooperatives, women's cooperatives are both improve and increase production activities as well as increasing the rate of women's work so they are an important tool for icreasing the sustainable development level in our country. It is important to ensure financial sustainability for the survival and proliferation of women's cooperatives. For this reason, the main purpose of this study is to assess the importance of women's cooperatives for the development of sustainable rural tourism, determine the financial resources choices which are them use to meet their funding needs, borrowing decisions and the variables that determine capital structures, analyze their financial performances and evaluate their financial adequacy. In this study, which is a descriptive research model feature, survey application was used as data collection tool. The obtained data were firstly interpreted according to frequency distributions, and then tried to be measured by chi-square analysis and anova (variance) analysis, in which funding preferences and basic financial problems have changed or not changed according to type and number of members of women cooperatives. Analytical means and standard deviations were used to analyze the financial performance in terms of female cooperatives' capital structure. Panel data analysis were used to determine the relationship between financial performance and capital structure of women's cooperatives. According to the analysis results, the most important financial problem of women cooperatives whose capital structure decisions can be explained by pecking order theory in general is determined as inadequate capital. It is thought that if the capital structures and financial structures of women's cooperatives are strengthened, they can more contribute to the sustainable rural tourism and thus the sustainable development of our country. Keywords: Sustainable Development, Sustainable Rural Tourism, Women's Cooperatives, Capital Structure, Financial Performance.