Underwater Tourism and An Empirical Study on Underwater Diving Locations in Turkey (The Ayvalık Sample)

Abstract

Today, the services sector has become one of the three important sectors of the world. Tourism, which is within the services sector, is now preferred both for employment and foreign exchange inflows, especially for emerging economies. Turkey fully discovered tourism in the 1980s and has achieved significant gains since then. Tourism today has become a strategic sector in the country. Having been squeezed within mass tourism, Turkey has emphasized different product groups since the 2000s and started to implement a tourist product diversification strategy. One of these product groups is underwater archeology and underwater diving tourism. Surrounded by seas on three sides, Turkey is located on the sea trade routes since ancient times. The geographical position of Anatolia and the straits it has have attracted the trade vessels in the Mediterranean to the ports on the Anatolian coast. Throughout history, some of the vessels that sailed in the seas surrounding Anatolia have sunk close to the shores, due to the absence of navigational devices, fogs, unknown rocks or suddenly rising storms. Today, there are remnants of many shipwrecks, submerged aircraft, etc. that are still waiting to be discovered off the coasts of Turkey. These
wrecks make Turkey very attractive in terms of underwater diving tourism. In light of these data, some of the rarest diving sites are located in Turkey for those who are interested in underwater sports. In addition, this sport is now becoming an important area of activity for tourists as well. In this study, underwater tourism has been studied at a conceptual level and information has been given about important diving points in the world. Also, important diving points of Turkey and marine fauna-flora were examined at a conceptual level. In the last part of the study, problems and solutions regarding underwater diving in the Ayvalık Region, which is an important tourism and diving destination of Turkey, have been proposed.