Investigation of tourism policies of Turkey in the context of five-year development plans and tourism strategy of Turkey-2023

The subject of the study is tourism planning and tourism policy. In this context, the examination of Turkey's tourism policy is the sub-topic of the study. The main purpose of this study is to determine the official tourism policy of the Republic of Turkey during the planned development period started in 1963. This thesis is important because of holistic assessment of the Republic of Turkey's tourism policy in the context of development plans. Thus, it presents an opportunity to see the developments and changes in tourism policy during the planned development period of Turkey. The study which is a descriptive research covers tourism policy and planning issues in addition to the data which are the development plans covering the years 1963-2018 and the Tourism Strategy of Turkey-2023. The data obtained from the official website of the Ministry of Development as secondary sources in this research adopting a qualitative approach were analyzed using descriptive analysis technique. According to the results, it is determined that the Republic of Turkey's expectation from the tourism is economic benefits such as foreign exchange income, employment and balance of payments. Although it has started to emphasize on qualitative values with the fifth FYDP, the expectations on diversification in tourism, seasonality, tourism training, organization, legislation, branding, qualified staff, national tour operators, marketing and crisis management issues have not been met yet.