DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVE CULTURAL TOUR ROUTES FOR MOUNT IDA DESTINATION

Mount Ida is a destination where many alternative tourism types (eco-tourism, agro-tourism, thermal tourism, health tourism, sports tourism and 3S tourism) have been practiced by the visitors already. Besides these tourism types, cultural tourism can be practiced in the region. In Mount Ida, there are so many tangible and intangible cultural heritage values which can be evaluated for cultural tourism. This study aims to reveal these cultural values and to utilize these cultural values within the cultural tours that can be practiced in Mount Ida destination. Mount Ida has many settlements especially the villages around it. The villages which are located in the Gulf of Edremit (Ye¿ilyurt, Küçükçetmi, Adatepe, Narl¿, Doyran, Avc¿lar, Kavlaklar, Tahtakülar, Çaml¿bel, Kavurmac¿lar, K¿z¿lkeçili, Mehmetalan) constitute the research area. The reason for choosing these villages for this study is that they are located on the main route of tourism mobility. It has been observed that there is not any academic study on cultural tour in Mount Ida. For that reason in this study, four alternative cultural tour routes were offered for the region.