TOURISM PLANNING THROUGH THE SYSTEM OF NATIONAL DESTINATION MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION

With the help of employment and income generating characteristics of the destinations, tourism has become the focus of interest in the World. However, we are not the owners of destinations, but we are the depositories of them for the future generations. It is a well-known fact that we have failed to preserve our natural, historical and cultural heritages, which play a significant role in the production of tourism products, and together with human resources, they all form the environment for businesses to operate in. At the heart of the failure to plan the tourism sector is the fact that local, regional and national destination management organizations, as decision making mechanisms, have not been established to represent the tourism sector. Due to failure in planning, carrying capacities of destinations are exceeded by new enterprises and new structures, and thus tourism monster (or spiral) is created in destinations. As in the case of Kusadasi, the monster continues to develop and grow until the enterprises and the destination itself in which businesses operate go bankrupt. This study focuses on how a proposed law of local, regional and national destination management organization, as a mechanism, will be based on tourism education institutions, the Ministry of tourism ( the General Directorate of Tourism in some countries) and tourism enterprises to be able to plan tourism sector representing all components equally. Taking into account the fact that “every successful social system gets its strength from its own professions and degrees”, this study reveals how to base tourism on tourism professions and tourism degrees, which are proofs of these professions, in the sector in order to establish a strong social system in tourism. This study provides recommendations, through a proposed law of Destination Management Organization System, about how decision-making processes of state could include representatives from local, regional and national destination management organisations ensuring them to work in a cooperative manner and about how the tourism sector could be planned through this proposed system to solve the problems. Human kind has always been curious about its history and roots. However, we consider the fact that the history of humanity could be written and constantly reviewed in a true way on earth, through correct tourism planning and financing. For this purpose, dynamic tourism planning and its implementation covering natural, historical, cultural assets (heritages) as well as human assets which are the sources of all tourism products is dependent on destination management organization systems based on tourism professions, and this is considered to be a prerequisite for the achievement of such planning. Using the National Destination Management System, with six hierarchical decisionmaking mechanisms as a tool, tourism academics should make continuous contribution to tourism planning regarding natural, historical and cultural tourism heritages that will increase the popularity of destinations through participation of research and development units of the destination management organisations. The excavations of ancient communities should be carried out in the destinations by national and foreign scientists best in their fields. With the help of the historical and cultural heritages uncovered with such excavations, the life styles of ancient civilisations should be explored and the findings regarding these civilisations should be presented in concrete examples to tourism consumers.