VISITORS PERCEPTION OF EVENTS: A SAMPLE OF AYDER SNOWMAN FESTIVAL

Abstract

In today's tourism market, local events, that come up with people's desire to understanding of different cultures and engaging in cultural activities and meeting the people's desire to spend their vocation time with fun activities, is located at the level of undeniable importance. Snowman Festival, organized in Ayder Highland, Çamlıhemşin, Rize, is one of the local events that slightly more developed and began to appeal to a wideraudience everyyear. It is possible to say that local actvities with in the scope of the festival bring about socio-cultural, economic and environmental changes in the region. In the study, socio-cultural, economic and environmental impacts of the Snowman Festival on tourists have been studied to reveal. And then, the perception of tourists about the events were trying to learn. For this purpose, a conceptual framework was created primarily for local events. Then, a research has been conducted on domestic tourists who join Snowman Festival, organized for 8th at 31 January-1 February 2015, made and the results of the research discussed. According to research results, it is possible to say that local events, providing a gain in all of the cultural and social fields.