Residents' attitudes toward general and forest-related impacts of tourism: the case of Belek, Antalya

This study investigates residents' attitudes to tourism impacts on forests within the larger framework of economic, social and general environmental impacts. The study site is Belek, a resort town on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, with a high concentration of tourists. The results of the survey indicate that residents have favorable attitudes towards tourism development in the area, but they also show widely held concern for the negative effects of tourism, mainly the impacts on the forests in the area. Moreover, these forest-related negative impacts are not attributed to the tourism activity or the tourist themselves, but to the quality of decision-making by the public authority, which is perceived as failing to exercise sound management and fair judgment in the allocation and use of land. The responses show uniformity related to perceived negative general environmental impacts.