مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - The Concept of Tourism Urbanization: The case of Antalya (Turkey)

Abstract :

This article deals with tourism-related urbanization process in Turkey. In the first part, theoretical and conceptual aspects of this phenomenon were discussed, followed by an empirical analysis in the case of a coastal province, Antalya. The city of Antalya, located on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey is the urban area where mass coastal tourism most rapidly developed since mid-80s. Diverse impacts of tourism industry such as social, economic, cultural and spatial, are highly visible in Antalya. Statistics on population growth rate, immigration, labour force, registered foreign population, foreign property ownership, tourist numbers and tourism facilities were employed in order to distinguish the dynamics of urbanization in Antalya from the other big cities of Turkey. The findings indicate that the process of tourism-related urbanization in Antalya has similarities with the other studies in the literature. The changing economic structure in Antalya based on tourism in the 1980s was accompanied by a rapid growth both in the population and in the labour force. The increase rate of Antalya population between 1985 and 2015 was 257 percent, raking the top among the other big cities of Turkey including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Kocaeli, Bursa and Tekirdağ. During the same period (1985-2015), the greatest increase in the percentage of the out-born population was observed in Antalya. Between 1980 and 2000, the labour force in the economic sectors directly or indirectly related to tourism increased 524 percent, leaving all the other provinces behind. Another effect of tourism industry is on the number of the foreign population settling in Antalya. In 2016, the number of foreign population with a residence or work permit has exceeded 60,000. The percentage of foreign population in Antalya is the highest (2.6 percent) among the province of Turkey.