A Discussion on the Tourism Incentive Policies Applied in Turkey and Its Results

The purpose of this study is to analyse the incentives made to the tourism sector in Turkey and their effects on the sector. Incentives that are among the most important means of intervention of government to economy have constituted an important part of economic life from past to present. Public incentives provided to the tourism sector played an important role in the rapid increase in the number of touristic establishments and in parallel with this in the number of tourists coming to the country and foreign exchange income. However, as the incentives made in Turkey are mostly oriented to the coastal regions, tourist demand has also concentrated on these regions. The goals of spreading tourism activities to other regions and making it year-round could not be sufficiently achieved. Product diversification and the amount of revenue received by means of it could not be realized at the planned level. Within this framework, determining tourism incentives for different tourism areas separately and giving sufficient incentives according to relevant sub-sector have an importance. In addition, the incentives provided must be effectively monitored. On the other hand, tourism incentives continue to be indispensable for the sector in fighting the problems that are still alive.