Kars Gruyere Experiences of Foreign Tourists Visiting Kars Boğatepe Village

Özet

The purpose of this study is to measure the experiences of foreign tourists about cheese, which is an under researched subject in the literature of gastronomy tourism in our country. In alignment with this purpose, five semi-structured, open-ended questions were asked to 19 tourists (Kyrgyzstan, Greece, Azerbaijan, Italy and Georgia) who came to visit Kars in order to experience the Kars gruyere produced in the Boğatepe Village in Kars. The interviews were conducted faceto-face by the researcher using the form between February 2, 2019 and January 10, 2020. Based on the results, it was identified that the foreign tourists who visited the Boğatepe Village to experience Kars gruyere were educated, middle and upper class, middle aged, and competent in terms of cheese tasting. In addition to cheese tasting, foreign tourists evaluated the Boğatepe Village in terms of tourism and thought that transportation and accomodation options (opportunities) were insufficient.