EVALUATIONS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN AMASRA'S URBAN LANDSCAPE

Abstract

This study examines Amasra district which is a small tourism center in the West Black Sea Region in Turkey. The natural and cultural landscape heritage of the city has been effected by the unplanned urban development and misuses based on tourism. Amasra?s landscape heritage should be served to meet needs of current people for tourism and also be passed to feature generation with minimum disruption. In this scope, the natural and cultural landscape values of Amasra are examined under the light of the questionnaires applied on local people and visitors, face to face interviews with experts, written and oral information obtained, literature review and observations made in the field. As a result of the evaluations, it is found that an effective sustainable tourism development is necessary because such negative factors as the rapid urbanization, loss of historical values, visual pollution, noise, lack of infrastructure and lack of environmental awareness are dominant in the district compared to economic, social, cultural and environmental positive impacts of tourism. This study offers suggestions to improve the positive effects found in Amasra urban landscape and recommends corrective actions and programmes towards the negative effects to the government, local administration, voluntary environmental institutions and visitors.