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rgu p, key-
informant interviews were done at both local and central
levels in U
rgu p. First,
the president of the association was interviewed, and
then based upon the direction given by the president;
four additional key-informants from the association
were interviewed. In addition, in-depth interviews were
conducted with ve ofcers of relevant central autho-
rities, namely the Ministry of Tourism (MT) and the
State Planning Organization (SPO).
In brief, data about tourism development and desired
forms of community participation by various interest
groups in the eld study area were drawn and
interpreted from a range of local and national sources
alongside references to secondary material. While they
are, inevitably, selective and interpretive in nature,
every attempt has been made to reveal a balanced
assessment of diverse qualitative and quantitative data.
However, the reader should remember that there was a
male bias in household surveys, local agencies surveys,
and key-informant interviews.
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C. Tosun / Tourism Management 27 (2006) 493504 496
4. The tourism development case in Turkey
U
rgu p, an
additional 142,518 domestic tourists also visited the
region and around 40 percent of them (58,289) visited
U
rgu p
and Cappadocia in general were well-educated and had
great respect for the local people and their values
between the 1950s and the 1970s. In this period the local
people accepted the tourists as their guests rather than
exclusively their customers. However, the implementa-
tion of the Encouragement of Tourism Law No. 2634
enacted by the military led-government in 1983 created
unfavorable market conditions for locally owned small
scale tourism businesses (Tosun, 1998). The generous
incentives given to the tourism industry ushered in the
emergence of rapid mass tourism in U
rgu p is
elaborated within the destination life cycle model, it may
be argued that without creating opportunities for
indigenous local people to take part actively in tourism
development at the right time and stage of tourism
development, it would be very difcult for local people
to obtain adequate benets or sustain their current share
from tourism development in their locality. For
example, although local people at the initial stage of
tourism development (Butlers (1980) exploration stage)
owned and operated small scale guest-houses, economy
class hotels or souvenir shops after Noronbas (1976)
discovery and local response and initiative stages, it has
become gradually more difcult for these indigenous
people to operate a tourism related business. Work in
the sector since tourism development has become
institutionalized (Butlers development stage), which
attracted capital to open large scale businesses with
the encouragement of the Tourism Incentive Law. In a
gradual manner local control over tourism development
has been lost while the local tourist destination has
attracted more of Plogs (1973) allocentrics and Cohens
(1972) institutionalized tourists. In the emergence of a
strong competition under the imperfect market condi-
tions, these locally owned small businesses in the
tourism industry could not survive and were closed.
However, this is not the case only in U
rgu p. Approxi-
mately 83% of respondents were male and 17% were
female. The gender distribution of the respondents
reects the socio-cultural structure in which there is a
tendency for male domination in the socio-economic
and political life of the community. A very small
percentage of the respondents (0.4%) were illiterate.
Some 53.4% had a primary education, and only 9.9%
had a university education. Clearly, most respondents
were not well educated in a formal sense, which could
limit community participation in tourism development.
While 74% of the respondents had a very low level of
income, 24% had a moderate level of income and 2%
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C. Tosun / Tourism Management 27 (2006) 493504 497
had a relatively high income level. Moreover, 55% of
the respondents stated that their family incomes were
just enough to survive while 41% of the respondents
considered their family incomes to be enough for a fair
standard of living. Only 4% of them stated that their
monthly family incomes were enough for a good
standard of living. A large majority of respondents
(79%) had been living in U
rgu p.
5.2. Nature of community participation expected by the
local community
The local people were asked how strongly they agree
or disagree with six statements regarding varying types
of community participation. The local peoples answers
were examined by assigning ranks based on the mean
(M) scores of each variable from the lowest mean (rank
equals to 6) to the highest mean (rank equals to 1)
(Table 1). The higher the M score, the stronger is the
agreement. The idea of elected and appointed local
government agencies deciding on tourism development
issues by consulting the local people gained the highest
scores. It should be noted that while appointed local
government agencies such as town-governor, local
museum director, local tourist ofce manager, etc. are
representatives of central government, the mayor,
councillors and neighborhood headmen are elected by
local people. The second highest scores belonged to the
idea of a committee elected by the local people specially
for developing, managing and controlling tourism
development should decide on all aspects of tourism
development in U
rgu p.
5.4. Nature of community participation expected by local
agencies
The local agencies were asked to indicate how
strongly they agree or disagree with the given six
different statements regarding forms of community
participation in tourism development. The local agen-
cies answers were again examined by assigning ranks
based on the mean (M) scores of each variable (Table 3).
The statement that elected and appointed local govern-
ment agencies should decide on tourism development
issues by consulting the local people gained the
highest mean score. The second was a committee
elected by the local people should decide upon tourism
development issues. The statement that the elected
local government should decide on tourism development
issues had the third highest mean score. The statement
that market forces should decide on the tourism
development issues had the lowest mean score, and
the idea that the MT should decide on the tourism
development issues had the second lowest mean score
among the given statements.
The ranking of the mean scores of these variables may
indicate that there was a central tendency among local
agencies to support the statement that the elected and
appointed local agencies should decide on tourism
development issues by consulting the local people.
Although the statement that a committee elected by the
public especially for developing, managing and control-
ling tourism development should decide on all aspects of
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Table 2
Local peoples views on means of involving local community in tourism
Value label n Yes % No % Mean Mode SD v
a
Attending seminar, conference 236 45.3 54.7 1.547 2 0.499 0.453
Responding survey 236 22.9 77.1 1.771 2 0.421 0.229
Holding referendum 235 62.6 37.4 1.374 1 0.485 0.374
Encouraging LP to invest in and work for tourism industry 236 88.6 11.4 1.114 1 0.319 0.114
Value: 1 yes; 2 no; LP local people;
a
The higher the variation ratio (v) the more poorly the mode reects overall distribution.
Table 3
Who should make decisions on tourism development in U
rgu p
Decision makers n Mean
a
Ranking SD
Ministry of tourism 20 2.3 5 1.4
Elected local government 20 2.65 3 1.3
Appointed local government 20 2.5 4 1.2
Appointed and elected government by consulting local people 20 3.75 1 1.4
A committee elected by public for specially developing and managing tourism 20 3 2 1.5
Market forces 20 1.55 6 0.759
The criteria were based on a ve-point scale, ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree
a
The higher the mean (M) score, the stronger is the agreement.
C. Tosun / Tourism Management 27 (2006) 493504 499
tourism development in the locality had the second
highest rank, the actual mean score of this item is 3. This
means that there was no tendency among the local
agencies to support or not to support community
participation in terms of Tosuns (1999a) spontaneous
participation and Prettys self-mobilization or interac-
tive participation (see Fig. 1). It is therefore obvious that
the statement that the Ministry Tourism and/or market
forces should decide upon all aspects of tourism
development issues were not supported by the respon-
dents (see Table 3).
The respondents from the local agencies were asked to
state their views about what should be an appropriate
role of the local community. A majority (68.4%) stated
that local people should take the leading role as
entrepreneurs and workers at all levels while a larger
majority (73.7%) was of the view that local people
should not have a voice at the level of decision making.
About 53% of respondents stated that local people
should be consulted and accordingly tourism policies
should be re-considered. Moreover, a vast majority of
the respondents (94.7%) rejected the statement that the
local people should not participate in tourism develop-
ment by any means (Table 4). On the other hand, about
73% of respondents believed that local people should be
consulted, but the nal decision on the tourism
development should be made by formal bodies. A
majority of the respondents (95.4%) also argued that the
local people should be nancially supported to invest in
tourism development, rather than outsiders.
The results of the personal interviews with members
of the local government agencies support the above
quantitative research results. For example, the local
governor (appointed by the Interior Minister) argued
that community participation should be at a consulta-
tive level. But the mayor (elected by local people for 5
years), director of local museum and director of local
tourist information bureau did not support community
participation at all. The mayor contended that as a
representative of the local people the municipality
makes decisions on behalf of public. Thus, there is no
need for community participation in tourism develop-
ment. The directors of the local museum (appointed by
the Minister of Culture) and tourist bureau agreed with
the mayor. They argued that local government agencies
can implement their own decisions, and this will increase
the role of the local people in local affairs. On the other
hand, they claimed that there is no point in getting the
local people involved in the decision making process of
tourism development since the local people economic-
ally and socially are not ready for this. To them,
Having an impact on the decisions requires economic
power. When you recommend a policy or strategy to
follow, you must have the ability to implement it. If
you do not have nancial power, you cannot
implement any recommendation which you offer.
Thus, it is not important how benecial or logical
your suggestion is. If you do not have enough money,
it is not a logical thing to demand participating in
tourism development or decisions regarding local
administration.
While local agencies survey results suggest that there
is a tendency among the respondents from local agencies
to support community participation in one of the forms
of Tosuns induced participation, they did not support
local people having a voice in the decision making
process. Moreover, qualitative data also indicated that
some in the local agencies opposed the idea of
community participation.
5.5. Nature of community participation expected by the
private sector representatives
Representatives of the private sector were very
sensitive to the questions regarding community partici-
pation. For example, the president of KAPTID stated
that y There is no difference between non-local
entrepreneurs and local entrepreneurs. The non-local
capital is needed to increase level of tourism develop-
ment in U
rgu p.
It is interesting that the views of private sector
representatives are almost opposed to those of local
people and/or local government. This may be partly
explained by power-distribution and power relationship
among the interest groups and political culture in the
eld study area. Local government agencies tend to
cooperate with local people since they need local
peoples votes so as to keep themselves in power, and
turn away possible threats to tourism development.
However, the private sector representatives do not want
to loose their privileged position gained through their
special relationship (patronclient relationship) with
decision-makers.
5.6. Nature of community participation expected by the
central bodies
Key-informants from the MT and SPO have claimed
that the decision-makers at central level do not have any
tendency to encourage community participation in any
forms since they do not want to distribute their power to
lower level governmental bodies and local people. They
stated that
y the current constitution does not permit local
people to participate in tourism development. The
local communities do not have any democratic inputs
to tourism development at local or central levels.
Only some well organized and economically powerful
groups have impact on the decisions. This is not
specic for the tourism sector; it is also valid for all
the sectors of the economy.
It is claimed that the political drama was limited to
elite actors, elite institutions, and elite urban settings in
Turkey. Mass elements were excluded by the nature of
the culture, the distribution of resources, and the design
of the rulers (O