Turkey seems to be running out its exceptional fortune: the sea and the coasts. Many favorite tourism spots and coasts have turned into a junkyard full of summerhouses and the negative impact of the economic development becomes visible each day

The construction of tourism facilities and the growing demand of local and international tourists in summerhouses is turning Turkey's coastal districts into a concrete jungle.

The Turkish Travel Agencies Association (TÜRSAB) Bodrum Regional Executive Committee President Nasih Demir told the Anatolia news agency that Turkey should take Spain as a model about tourism policies.

“Only Antalya has more five-star hotels than the sum of the whole Spain," Demir said. "The Aegean coast is also invaded by summer houses.”

In recent years, many foreigners started to settle or own summerhouses in the untouched and beautiful southern coastal cities of Turkey like Bodrum, Marmaris, Kuşadasi, Didim, Antalya and Fethiye. The construction sites are growing with a supply rate 10 times more than the demand. Bodrum Chamber of Commerce Yacht Construction Occupational Committee President Arif Yılmaz said that 94 percent of the coasts in the route of blue cruises were under threat due to shanty construction.

Human activity and development ruin the natural beauties in the coastal line. The green is dying out in the districts day by day. Demir said in the early 2000s, only 10 percent of the peninsula was open for public planning. “However this number increased to 20 to 25 percent in recent years," he said.

“The development plans, policies to promote tourism and the coasts, our coasts, have turned into a mass of concrete,” said Bodrum Mayor Mazlum Ağan. He claimed that unconscious structuring and flock of settlement damaged tourism in the region. “Whether tourism investment or residences, we want no more construction in the district.”

Ağan said that in the past the number of hotels built in the region was beyond the need and that the number of summerhouses increased after 1980s. “There are about 200 summer houses in Bodrum. The coast line with high tourism potential is invaded by the summer houses,” he said.

He also mentioned that those houses, only used a couple of months a year, were a financial burden for municipalities. He said demand in Bodrum grew with foreigners being allowed to purchase estates. Ağan also stated that there are about four thousand settlements that have faulty licenses and the city suffers from shanty constructions. “Nearly every hotel in Bodrum have problems about the development plan," he said.