POSITIONING WITH THE HELP OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR ALTERNATIVE TOURISM ACTIVITIES: KONYA PROVINCE EXAMPLE

Tourism is an important activity in our country just like it is all over the world. Konya province is famous with religious tourism. It is known that Rumi, in other words Mevlana, shows are followed by whole world. The province also used to be the capital of Anatolian Seljuk Empire so it contains many Islamic pieces of art. It owns a living history with inns, hostels, cupolas and mosques and left behind from Seljuks. In this study researches were made for alternative tourism activities so as to let our province be known for the other types of tourism activities. The suitable areas for alternative activities were aimed to be determined by geographical information systems. Natural and cultural properties of research area were determined and numerical database se was formed. By using the database and with the help of ArcGIS program, altitude, slope and exposure maps were produced. For determination of suitable areas according to alternative tourism type, national and international legislations were taken as a basis so as to determine technical and economic criteria in location selection and the limitations to be taken as a basis during application were detected. Mountain bike, ski tourism, paragliding, tableland tourism, camping ? caravan tourism activities were selected. Location selection process was realized with the help of GIS, abilities to analyze and visualize positional data.