Abstract
A Suggestion of Alternative Tourism in the Black Sea Region: The Cruise Tourism
Cruise tourism is an alternative type of tourism that has increasingly come to the forefront in tourism industry lately. The Mediterranean Region is crucial as it is the second most visited destination by cruise lines following the Caribbean. Serving as a recently discovered tourist attraction in the Mediterranean Region, the Black Sea features a growing potential in cruise tourism. Six countries border with the Black Sea and these countries have ports visited by cruise ships. Türkiye stands out in cruise tourism with 25 ports on the coastline of the Black Sea, particularly including the ports of Trabzon, Sinop, Samsun and Bartın which are popular among cruise lines.
This paper aims to reveal the potential of Türkiye’s ports on the Black Sea coastline in terms of cruise tourism and to offer insights for the improvement of the current potential. This is a field research paper where both quantitative and qualitative data are used. The travel & observation method was used for data collection and field studies were carried out at ports including the ports of Trabzon and Samsun. In addition, the literature on the research topic was reviewed to reach national and international statistics. The research revealed that, although Türkiye’s ports on the Black Sea coastline has sufficient potential for cruise tourism, this potential cannot be used as desired due to international issues such as the Russia-Ukraine crisis as well as domestic issues such as terror acts or infrastructural inadequacies. In this respect, we believe that this region could soon reach further levels in cruise tourism as a result of the efforts to make Black Sea a safe environment for cruise lines, to improve the urban qualities as well as technical and operational properties required for cruise tourism at the ports and in the cities situated on the Black Sea coastline, to carry out advertising, branding and marketing works and to attract cruise lines to the region.
Keywords
Black Sea, Cruise, Tourism.
