Evaluation of Spatial Sustainability on the Importance of Walkability in Choosing the Location of Hotels in the City of Konya

Abstract: Formation of compact and sustainable societies and cities under the influence of various political initiatives and social awareness is one of the basic principles of today's city planning. In society, there is a prevailing opinion that economic costs must be paid in order to ensure sustainability in the environmental and social context. On the other hand, in various scientific studies, it has been revealed that sustainability policies provide economic benefits to users from building scale to city and regional scale and produce economic value. While walkability is the most basic indicator of sustainability on urban scale, it will reduce the ecological footprint of cities and minimize fossil fuel dependence with a city approach that prioritizes compact city form instead of today's widespread cities with uncertain borders. With this pedestrianization-based planning approach, which reduces automobile dependency, the prevention of cities’ uncontrolled growth and the development of spatial theories compitable with human scale, based on traditional city forms such as 15-minute walk city has been enabled. Studies conducted in various countries, including Turkey, show that there is a strong correlation between walkability with real estate investments and various other economic indicators. In this study, it will be examined to what extent the walkability criteria are taken into account in the selection of the locations of the hotels as touristic accommodation facilities in accordance with the compact-walkable city planning principles in the sample of the city of Konya, and to what extent the tourists staying in the city for congress, historical and religious tourism choose hotels by taking into account the walkability criteria, considering that in the city concept all urban social facilities are offered in the city center and the historical city center is located next to this developed center in spatial context. The degree of correlation of these two parameters in the context of walkability will contribute to the spatial sustainability of the city of Konya by shedding light on the compactness data set that should be related to the future of Konya city. In addition, by defining the relationship between the study outputs, walkability values and the accommodation preferences of the tourists, it will guide the tourism investors who will invest in the city to choose a new accommodation facility.