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1. Introduction
Turkey continues to maintain its trend in increasing tourism numbers. The number of foreign visitors to Turkey increased approximately 10 per cent from a year earlier to around 34.9 million in 2013, and Turkey kept its position to sixth place for the past three years for tourist arrivals, reaching about $25.3 billion tourism receipts (WTO, 2014). In 2013, the tourism sector generated approximately 11 per cent of Turkey's gross domestic product, and employed 2.1 million people, or 8.4 per cent of total employment (Benchmarking Travel and Tourism in Turkey, 2013). However, most of the tourism development in Turkey has been in the mass tourism area and the development has taken place on a narrow coastal line along the Aegean and the Mediterranean coasts. Mass tourism is of great importance for the economic development of Turkey, but it has such some shortcomings as lower spending per tourist, seasonal change and increased pressure on physical and socio-cultural environment.
Turkey's tourism sector objectives for 2023 (100th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic) is to be among the five top countries in the world and the main focus is on increasing expenditure per visitor, and expanding tourism into year-round to countrywide by diversifying tourism products such as convention, golf, shopping, cultural and religious tourism (Yildiz, 2013, p. 19). Because religious tourism is less prone to economic ups and downs and faith-based travelers are committed travelers (Olsen and Timothy, 2006; Wright, 2008), religious tourism offers high potential for achieving these objectives.
In fact, previous studies emphasize the potential of religious (or faith) tourism development in Turkey (Egresi et al. , 2012). It is widely known that Turkey is the repository of many Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious monuments and values ( www.goturkey.com ). The three celestial religions cohabit on Anatolia through the tradition of respect and understanding for the freedom of faith and worship since centuries that continues today in contemporary Turkey (Ulusoy and Yilmaz, 2002). Nieminen (2012), for example, found that Turkey has an enormous potential for religious tourism especially for those interested in Christian history. At a level that the Finnish Christians see Turkey as the fifth important religious tourism destination after Israel, Greece, Finland and Italy. In another study, Block and Gurbuz (2013)...