Evaluation of Social Carrying Capacity of Topkapi Palace By Employees and Visitors

Visitors’ using attraction resources at an optimum level is essential for the sustainable usage of areas. In fact Topkap Palace arouses a considerable level of interest in terms of resources it has and this interest consequently leads to a concentration of visitors and a high degree of usage. The concentration in the area has utmost importance in terms of visitor carrying capacity. One of the groups who can evaluate the concentration present in this area most efficiently is the employees of the palace who are in continuous interaction with the visitors. One of the main objectives of this study is revealing the opinions of the employees on visitor carrying capacity. In order to gather information from the employees, face-to-face interview technique has been used and the evaluations of the employees have shown that visitor concentration has reached a level which may cause some negative results.