- The Importance of cultural Tourism in the EU Integration Process    116 kb by    Cengiz, Hüseyin & Eryýlmaz, Semiha Sultan & Eryýlmaz, Yaþasýn | mcengiz1@ttnet.net.tr    Short Outline In this research cultural tourism in Istanbul is analyzed in order to discuss which strategies can be followed to support Istanbul as cultural capital of Europe in 2010. Abstract Today, the cultural tourism activities are formed by visiting of people to museums and historical - cultural heritage regions, attend attractive artistic / cultural activities such as theaters, festivals in order to gain new information and experiences and provide their cultural requirements either by traveling to other provinces or countries Depending on the importance and magnitude of provinces or settlements, national/international cultural integration, different cultures offer alternatives. The people attending to cultural tourism have higher education, culture and income levels. This caused an increase in the cultural tourism investments either in national or international level. The historical religious structures, museums or ancient ruins owned by provinces or zones are opened to visits, international culture-art festivals, congress and exhibitions are organized and the accommodation, cuisine, shopping activities are organized as efforts to create contemporary urban spaces. Rather than resting needs of people, different cultures and spaces are visited at their site to be known, new things are learnt and common cultural and artistic activities are attended through cultural tourism, which could yield a national and international integration tool. In the international level, the cultural tourism which provide integration of different cultures or the people residing in different cities though belonging to same culture is also very important for Turkey. Offering national cultural diversity, the cultural tourism should be considered as an opportunity in the process of integration to EU. In this scope, Istanbul was included in the World Heritage List in 1985, with its cultural characteristics and for the year 2010, it is selected one of the Cultural Capitals of Europe. It is therefore important to form high quality cultural and artistic places (such as congress and exhibition centers, art galleries, museums, monumental / religious structures, historical heritage, festival and performance places) which provide opportunity to communicate the historical heritage of cultures as well as life styles and increase cooperation. In this study, strategies will be studied in reorganization of cultural tourism for restructuring of Istanbul in the process of EU integration and becoming a Cultural Capital and increasing the number of cultural and artistic places which provide integration of societies. Keywords Cultural tourism, cultural and artistic spaces, integration, Turkey. Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2006: Cities between Integration and Disintegration   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper