A STUDY ON EVALUATION OF WINTER TOURISM ACTIVITIES OF TURKEY AND SWITZERLAND

Today, world tourism trends are changing rapidly and one of these trends attract attention as winter tourism. In order to get a share of the tourism, the countries are in the direction of the tourism seasons towards the extension types of tourism. Winter tourism is also a kind of tourism with mountain sports as a base which enables the tourism activities in a country to spread all over the world. If the winter tourism investments are carried on urgently, the tourism destination will continue to develop in this respect. In this study, winter tourism, considered as an alternative tourism type, was evaluated together with tourism activities in ski resorts located in Turkey and Switzerland and the winter tourism movements between the two countries were compared. The work to be done in order to develop the tourism destination has been evaluated on the axis of winter tourism activities. According to the findings of the study, it is found out that Switzerland is actively benefiting from winter tourism potential in Turkey. This benefit, which Switzerland has been able to achieve, has been seen in the popularity of existing winter tourism centers and the diversity of sports activities (curling, snowpolo) complementary to winter tourism activities in ski resorts. It has also been determined that Turkey needs to give more importance to promotion in order to increase the awareness of winter tourism centers