ABSTRACT

As a source of major contribution to the countries’ economies by way of constant foreign exchange inflow, tourism is a continuously developing sector. For this reason, countries regard tourism as a significant source of income and employment. Development of tourism in any country depends on the efficient utilization of its resources, while the increase in number of tourists depends on the appropriate and dynamic utilization of such resources. In terms of number of tourists, Turkey has come a long way in this sector by making a steady progress over the last 12 years and taking the 6th spot worldwide. In this study, cities in Turkey have been analyzed in a two dimension space by using multidimensional scaling analysis and the data concerning the number of tourists, facilities, rooms and beds and average stay periods. Multidimensional scaling analysis has been applied for the years 2001, 2006 and 2011 on a 38 cities basis for the purpose of establishing the differences or similarities within five year periods. At the end of the study, the cities of Istanbul, Antalya and Muğla have been found to be located remotely from the center as compared to other cities and that they nearly maintained their distance to one another at the same time.