PAU Academician Achieves Success for Turkey's First Dark Sky Park
One of the studies for alternative tourism types within the scope of destination development in cooperation with local governments was Turkey's first dark sky park project with the partnership of Pamukkale University, Beyağaç Municipality, Denizli Metropolitan Municipality and Kalebey Local Action Group.
Dark sky parks, which are built on lands suitable for sky observations in areas with low levels of light pollution around the world, were evaluated to have an important astro-observation and astro-tourism park potential in the Topuklu plateau of Beyağaç district. Pamukkale University (PAU) Denizli Vocational School of Social Sciences (DSBMYO) lecturer Dr. Mehmet Tahir Dursun, who continues to work to obtain the Dark Sky Park certificate of the International Dark Sky Parks Association (IDA) within the scope of astro-tourism, informed that the first part of the application consisting of three stages was successfully completed and evaluated as a potential park by IDA officials.
Beyağaç Topuklu Plateau is an area that has been used in the past years for the study of Turkey's sky and celestial phenomena. At the Sky Observation Festival, which will be held for the second time this year on July 12-16, 2023, IDA officials will make on-site observations and examine the area to make it a Dark Sky Observation Park. Within the scope of the event, the first Astro Tourism Symposium will be organized in Denizli. PAU faculty member Dr. Mehmet Tahir Dursun will be the academic coordinator of the event and the process of certifying Topuklu Plateau as a Dark Sky Park.
Continuing to work in the field of cultural heritage tourism, PAU is adding new ones to its academic studies and projects in the field of tourism. In this context, Pamukkale University DSBMYO lecturer Dr. Mehmet Tahir Dursun is the researcher and Nevşehir University faculty member Dr. Ozan Atsız is the executive director of the project titled "Development of Attitudinal Tourist Behavior Scale: Application of Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory" was approved to be supported by TÜBİTAK within the scope of 1002-Rapid Support Program.
