Aegean Geographical Journal

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.