Supporting Türkiye’s Travel and Tourism Development: Challenges and Opportunities of Using Big Data for Sustainable Growth
This project aims to identify policies to be followed in Turkey’s travel and tourism sector to achieve sustainability goals through big data and digitalization. Tourism accounts for 11% of Turkey’s GDP, demonstrating its importance in the country’s socio-economic development.
Due to COVID-19, the tourism sector experienced a slowdown in 2020, 2021, and 2022. However, the sector began to recover in 2023. Sustainability, in particular, emerges as a factor that enhances the sector’s success and competitiveness. Big data analytics and digitalization play a significant role in monitoring and managing the economic, social, and environmental footprints of the sector using information obtained from data sources. Therefore, investment is needed for Turkey to improve in this area. A governance framework should be established for policymakers to effectively utilize big data in sustainable tourism. Financing should be strengthened and institutional capacity increased. In addition, digitalization and ensuring data privacy and security are also important.
