The determination of the strategies which can be effective for marketing of the traditional Turkish baths (hamams): An investigation with Russian tourists

Abstract

The changes that have occured in the technology, economic, social and cultural area have caused to change the desires, needs and expectations and to seek different products and services of the customers. The changes which have occured in the profile and tendency of the customers, force the tourism sector inevitably to improve the products according to the demand’s needs. In order to meet the needs and expectations of the customers and changed features of the demands, it is necessary to improve new tourism types in the different fields. Interesting tourism products and services are showed as the alternative of the mass tourism and reflect the whole tendencies which have improved to satisfy different and special interest beyond the interest which have improved around sea, sun and sand. So, improving interesting tourism products and services become very important. One of the interesting tourism products and services (especially for the cultural tourism) is the traditional Turkish Bath (Turkish Hamam) which have been to be transferred from the past to the present. The traditional Turkish Bath (Hamam) is the variant of a steam bath, which can be categorized as a wet relative of the sauna. The Turkish Baths have played an important role in cultures of the Turkey, serving as places of social gathering, ritual cleansing, and as architectural structures, institutions, and (later) elements with special customs attached to them. The traditional Turkish Baths one of the fairly colourful part of the Turkish national culture, keep on their existence, although they have been partly changed. The traditional Turkish Baths which are serve as a product, attract attention and demand as a unit in thermal hotels, health and beauty centers and the the other hospitality enterprises in addition to today’s decreasing number of the original Turkish Baths. Turkey offers a great variety of opportunities for the traditional Turkish Baths in cultural tourism services, however, there are also marketing problems in turning the traditional Turkish Baths into a competitive tourism product. The purpose of the study is to determine the strategies which can be effective for marketing of the traditional Turkish Bath as a competitive tourism product. In this purpose, a survey has been carried out on Russian tourists to determine the demographic characteristics of the respondents and some specific research questions such as what are the reasons to use the Turkish Bath? What are the effective tools to use the Turkish Bath? What services the respondents benefit from the Turkish Bath? And what are the attractive features of the Turkish Baths? Taking into account the survey results, the different strategies have been recommended in marketing of the Turkish Baths. This study could be useful for the enterprises which serve the Turkish Bath as a tourism product in creating different marketing strategies.