The Relationship Between Resident Attitudes Toward Tourism and Support for Further General and Forest-Related Tourism Development

Abstract

This study explores resident reactions to tourism at the local level in Turkey with the case study of Antalya-Belek. More specifically, it tests the relationship between resident attitudes toward tourism and support for further general and forest-related tourism development. The reactions were measured by resident attitude toward general and forest-related tourism's impacts, and opinions about general and forest-related tourism development in the future. In this context, the main objective of the study was to investigate resident attitudes toward tourism's impacts and how they related to general and forest-related tourism development. Although residents in Belek recognized the existence of tourism's environmental and economic costs, more specifically forest-related costs, they supported further tourism development without the expansion on the forest lands resulting from mass tourism activities.