Significance of Cultural Heritage Preservation in Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Muradiye Complex in Bursa, Turkey

Cultural tourism has become one of the important sectors of tourism in recent years with the growing awareness on cultural heritage. As being aware of the tourism potential of cultural heritage sites, policy makers pay special attention to preservation of these sites. However, the increasing number of visitors depending on the promotion of culture and history began to endanger the sustainability of heritage sites. In order to ensure the balance between preservation and utilization, researchers investigated the ways for welcoming large number of visitors without risking the sustainability. Bursa, as one of the recent UNESCO World heritage sites in Turkey, has a growing potential in terms of cultural tourism with its peculiar Ottoman urban pattern including building complexes called kulliyes. This situation caused an increase in the number of visitors. Muradiye Kulliye is one of the attracting places in Bursa in terms of its symbolic and historic characteristics including a mosque, a madrasa, a bath and the tombs of earlier Ottoman Sultans. This paper aims to describe the practices in terms of preservation for ensuring the sustainability of the complex.