Carmen Van Kruisbergen

"The Image of the Netherlands As a Holiday Destination": Among Second Generation Turkish Immigrants Living in the Netherlands Carmen Van Kruisbergen

The Turkish community in the Netherlands is the largest group of non-western immigrants living in the Netherlands. The country of origin is still the most favourite holiday destination of the Turkish immigrants, but there is a clear turning point visible. Especially the second generation Turkish immigrants resemble more and more the native Dutch and spend their holidays less in the country of origin and form therefore an interesting new target group for the tourism industry. However, research indicates that the Netherlands as a holiday destination among the Turkish immigrants is not very popular. As more and more areas of the world are developed for tourism, the destination choices available to consumers continue to expand. In this case, to be successfully promoted in a targeted market, a country must be favorably differentiated from its competition and has to have a strong image to be positioned in the mind of the people. Against this backdrop, the aim of this dissertation was to determine what the second generation Turkish immigrants think of the Netherlands as a holiday destination. For this purpose, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research was conducted.