THE EVALUATION OF RELIGIOUS TOURISM POTENTIAL IN ANTAKYA

Abstract

Antakya has many important monuments and sacred places which are visited each year within the scope of religious tourism. Therefore in this study it has been aimed to evaluate religious tourism potential in terms of Antakya, is to research whether Antakya has international tourism potential enough or not for the religious tourism. In the application part of this study, questionnaire technique was used for gathering data. The analysis was done in two stages. In the first stage, thoughts of the local people about religious tourism and their point of views to foreign tourists were tried to determine. In the second stage, thoughts of foreign tourists about Antakya and their point of views to religious tourism were tried to determine. In conclusion, people who live in Antakya want that name of Antakya must come to the fore for international tourism and lots of tourists must visit Antakya but they indicates that there is not enough demand for Antakya and there are problems related to accommodations. Foreign tourists think that Antakya must be seen absolutely but it has some problems about meeting the demand. Some suggestions had been developed based on the findings for accommodation companies, public institutions and new researchers.