Alternative tourism for sustainability of coastal areas

Abstract

Coastal regions are places where natural and cultural environment destruction has the most severe effects. One of the reasons that enhance this distraction is tourism development. Advantages of tourism development, mainly its economical contributions on regional and urban scale, are obvious. Therefore, without disregarding the benefits of development of tourism, models need to be developed urgently to avoid the distraction of natural and cultural environment as a result of development of tourism in the coastal areas. In the integration period to EC, the pressure brought by tourism on the coastal areas and the sustainable development of these areas, are the most important topics for Turkey that need to be handled urgently. In this study, development, importance and methodologies of alternative tourism models for the sustainability of tourism developments in the coastal areas are examined. In this context, settlements in Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts will be sampled and proposals will be developed for alternative tourism. © 2014 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.