This paper aims to clarify and make visible of the Tahtaci
Turkmen culture as an ethnic group culture through tourism
perspective. Since the current agenda of international organizations
such as UNESCO, UNWTO etc, is to value tangible and intangible assets
of ethnic and indigenous people around the world, tourism potentials
held by these people opportunity to them to participate as a tourism
supplier. Thus, their cultural know-how can be kept and survived for
the next generations.
The central question of the study raised on is; how can the
Tahtaci Turkmen culture been protected as a tourism product in
sustainable tourism? For this purpose, in-depth interview and
observation techniques were used on Tahtaci Turkmen villages of
Çanakkale, Turkey. Also a SWOT analysis was conducted according to
the findings of the interviews, observations and literature review.
According to the results of the analyses, protecting and developing
social and cultural identity of the Tahtaci Turkmen culture can be
feasible in sustainability perspective.
The value of this study is one of the prior researches on the
Tahtaci Turkmen culture in international perspective for tourism,
heritage and protection. It is widely accepted that any cultural heritage
of a group is also the value of the people in the world.