- Pulsar Effect of Tourism in Cappadocia, Turkey    71 kb by    Cagatay, Aslý | aslemr@hotmail.com    Short Outline This Paper discusses the strains put by tourist pulses on the natural and historical values of Cappadocia and proposes strategic areas of policy and planning intervention Abstract Located in central Anatolia, Cappadocia is a very unique region with its whole natural and historical characteristics. Its special geological structure is shaped by human hand; namely, the early Christian communities of Anatolia seeking security took refugee in the region more than one thousand years ago. These characteristics constitute the unique identity of Cappadocia, which cannot easily be found elsewhere in the world. The region became a popular destination for tourists especially since the last two decades and received quite intensive tourism investments. All this development took place in a rather short period of time spanning only 20 years. Such a rapid development was usually unplanned. Moreover, they were not grounded on sound feasibility studies with a concern also for sustainability. Today, Cappadocia region is visited by nearly two millions of tourists in a year who flock to the region only during two months, July and August. Thus, the negative pulsar effects of this tourist flow in Cappadocia are immense and jeopardize the integrity of the natural and historical values of the region. Major problems that arise from such sudden hits of tourism can be identified as follows: Such large numbers of tourists visit the area only for short periods of time. That is the duration of stay of tourists in Cappadocia averages to only 2 days or they come and go on a daily basis. Thus, making the economic contribution of tourism in the area insufficient. Secondly, large tourist complexes, which were mostly built without an overall planning framework are used only to half of their capacity even in the high season. During the long off-season period, the prices are lowered to such an extent that results in a significant reduction of the quality of services provided to tourists. Regarding the population, on the other hand, tourism provides employment only for a short period of two months. And those who work in tourism and related sectors are left without jobs during the rest of the year. This paper discusses the strains put by tourist pulses on the natural and historical values of in Cappadocia and proposes strategic areas of policy and planning intervention in order to reconcile tourism with goals of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Keywords Cappadoccia Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2002: The Pulsar Effect   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper