Research Article Journal of Tourism & Hospitality J Tourism Hospit, Vol.12 Iss. 2 No: 1000517 1 OPEN ACCESS Freely available online *Correspondence to: Inci Zeynep Yilmaz, Department of Forest Economics, Artvin Coruh University, Artvin, Turkey, E-mail: iza@artvin.edu.tr Received: 14-Apr-2023, Manuscript No. JTH-23-23507; Editor assigned: 17-Apr-2023, PreQC No. JTH-23-23507 (PQ); Reviewed: 01-May-2023, QC No. JTH-23-23507; Revised: 08-May-2023, Manuscript No. JTH-23-23507 (R); Published: 15-May-2023, DOI:10.35248/2167-0269.23.12.517. Citation: Yilmaz IN, Ozturk A (2023) SWOT Analysis of Sustainable Ecotourism Potential Management in Protected Areas: A Case Study of Artvin. J Tourism Hospit.12:517. Copyright: © 2023 Aydin IN, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. SWOT Analysis of Sustainable Ecotourism Potential Management in Protected Areas: A Case Study of Artvin Inci Zeynep Yilmaz*, Atakan Ozturk Department of Forest Economics, Artvin Coruh University, Artvin, Turkey INTRODUCTION With the effect of sustainable development, changes have become inevitable in the tourism sector, as in many sectors, and tourism policies have gained importance [1]. In particular, the concept of protected areas has become more important as a solution for the protection of forests and other natural resources used for tourism purposes and their sustainability while protecting them [2]. Following these, although many studies were conducted to monitor the sustainability of ecotourism activities around the World [3-14], with the planned development period that started in the 1960s in Turkiye, various development plans (eighth, ninth, and tenth) and their Special Specialization Commission reports, the Turkiye National Forestry Program, the 1st Environment and Forestry Council Decisions, the 2nd Forestry and Water Council Decisions, and the 3rd Agriculture and Forestry Council reported only policies and strategies for the development and dissemination of ecotourism in protected areas in these macro-level documents [15-17]. Despite these developments, the problems experienced in tourism ABSTRACT In this study, it is aimed to examine the ecotourism potential in the protected areas with Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis based on expert opinions based on example of Artvin province. In this context, the situation was analyzed based on the opinions of 58 experts, consisting of local administrators and Global Environment Facility (GEF) project employees, NGOs and tour operators, the people of Camili and academics. As a result of the protection of natural resources and biodiversity, socio-economic benefits to the local people and the protection of cultural resources were listed as the most important criteria with the SWOT analysis. In addition, the main strengths of Artvin province are listed as habitat and species diversity and cultural memory, opportunities, the positive contribution of ecotourism in employment, the inadequacy of studies on the capacity to carry the weaknesses, and the deficiencies and threats in the database and inventory records, the problems experienced in the institutional framework/capacity, and the inadequacy of legislation and laws. In order to ensure sustainable ecotourism activities in protected areas, it is necessary to increase the effectiveness of the criteria and indicators, to strengthen the weaknesses, to use the opportunities in favor of the area, and to eliminate the threats and turn them into opportunities. Keywords: SWOT analysis; Protected areas; Sustainable ecotourism activities carried out in protected areas in Turkiye have not been overcome. Moreover, as a result of reasons such as globalization, rapid change in technology, newly formed markets, and the constant change in customer expectations and needs, it has become functional to think more strategically, make strategic plans and make strategic decisions all over the World [18]. Although there is a new emphasis on determining criteria and indicators for sustainable ecotourism management of a protected area in Turkiye [19-21], these studies seem to be still in the early stages. In addition, it is considered necessary to carry out SWOT analyzes that have the potential to serve the implementation of the "Strategic Management Approach" for each protected area in order to increase the efficiency and productivity of these studies in terms of quality and quantity. Therefore, in measuring the sustainability of ecotourism activities carried out in a protected area, the sustainability of a protected area will increase, its audit-monitoring activities will become more functional, and its position among other countries will increase, both with criteria and indicators, and with the determination of strengths/weaknesses, opportunities/ threats for the area in question can make it stronger.