Examining cultural tourism attractions for foreign visitors: The case of camel wrestling in Selçuk Ephesus

Abstract

This study focuses on the Camel Wrestling Festival in Selçuk, which has gained importance with its tourist appeal among traditional camel wrestling organizations in Western Anatolia. The study aimed to investigate those aspects of the Festival, which were found to be attractive for foreign visitors, and to evaluate the impacts of tourism on this traditional event. The study data were obtained from the surveys that were completed by 56 foreign visitors at the Camel Wrestling Festival in Selçuk on January 18, 2009. Findings of the study demonstrate that this traditional event attracts foreign visitors from various countries worldwide, for they are curious about this event and desire to have a cultural-authentic experience. The Camel Wrestling Festival in Selçuk is a cultural heritage, which has not been commercialized or lost its authentic significance yet, although it is vulnerable to the impact of international tourism. Nevertheless, handing this value down to the future by conserving it with its cultural surroundings is possible through a sustainable tourism policy. The Camel Wrestling Festival in Selçuk is in the process of becoming a touristic product, and the proposals in the study contribute to the development of a policy for the festival concerned.

The Interplay of Traditional Cultural Events and Cattle Farm: Humans and Animals as Victims of Madurese Ancient Tradition

“…The best recognised of the animal-versus-animal competitions are cock fights, widespread in several parts of the world (Bryant, 1991;Geertz, 1972;Marvin, 1984); more localized instances are fights between camels (Calişkan, 2009(Calişkan, , 2010, water buffalos, horses (The Horse Fund, 2014), rams (Spooky, 2010), dogs (Forsyth and Evans, 1998;Kalof and Taylor, 2007), and even beetles (Wannamontha, 2011). In the past there were even elephant fights in Mughal, India (Pearson, 1984) and in Aceh, today's Indonesia (Reid, 1989).…”

Tourists’ perspectives on hard and soft services toward rural tourism destination competitiveness: Community support as a moderator

“…By realizing the importance of destination appeals for the development of a successful and sustainable tourism destination, past studies have repeatedly investigated the components on destination appeals in the tourism context (Adeyinka-Ojo and Nair, 2015; Ritchie and Crouch, 2003; Zeinali and Jarpour, 2015). A study by Çalışkan (2014) examined the cultural tourism attractions for destination appeals in the case of Camel Wrestling in Selçuk. The study has posited the events and festivals as the crucial components for tourism destination appeals.…”

ANN–polynomial–Fourier series modeling and Monte Carlo forecasting of tourism data

“…With regard to the Turkish monthly tourism data, a number of studies have presented candidate methods, which are deemed feasible by the authors (Akın, 2015;Aslanargun et al, 2007;Çalıs ¸kan, 2010;Çelik & Çetinkaya, 2013;Egresi & Kara, 2014;Karamustafa & Ulama, 2010;Mengu, 2018;Okumus et al, 2012;Yilmaz, 2015;Zeytino glu et al, 2018). The Turkish tourism data exhibit seasonal behavior like many other tourism data (Karamustafa & Ulama, 2010).…”