The evolution and distribution of hotels in Istanbul

Istanbul is a world‐famous tourist attraction centre owing to its unique location, nature and history. The restructuring process of the 1980s focused on the tourist industry as a means of promoting economic development, and the number of hotels in Istanbul increased dramatically. Although tourism is one of the country's growing industries, little research has been done on the subject. Largely, research in tourism has become a form of market research, with official statistics, and very little being collected on the supply side. Thus, this study focuses especially on the supply side end investigates the historical and spatial development of hotels in Istanbul. The results of the study illustrate that hotels were mostly concentrated in or near the CBD until the 1950s. Later, hotels started to decentralize as a result of the polycentric development of the city and to take advantage of the amenities along the sea coast end Bosphorous. Further research is suggested to compare the development of hotels in Istanbul with other tourist centres in Turkey.