Özkan Tütüncü

Evaluation of travel agencies' attitudes towards the European Union.

ABSTRACT The path to European Union (EU) membership requires the economic, political, and socio-cultural interaction and transformation of the candidate country. This paper considers both Turkeys EU membership prospects as a marketed product and the opinion of the Turkish public in general, with a focus on travel agencies as the consumers of this product. As tourism is an important economic activity for both the EU and Turkey, this paper highlights the importance of raising and clarifying the issues regarding the perception of Turkish travel agencies toward Turkeys EU membership. This paper identifies the implications of Turkeys EU membership perspective on a sectoral basis in the framework of expectancy theory and in light of a questionnaire survey conducted in the Aegean Region of Turkey. Results from the field study indicate that travel agencies expect an increasing role for the actors in the tourism industry on the path to accession. Membership to the EU is expected to affect Turkeys economic development in the following areas: economic relations, the composition of the tourism industry, and the development of travel agencies.