Examination of Historical Baths Terms of Hygiene and Sanitation: The Example of Sivas Province

Abstract

Today, tourism, which has a significant contribution to the country's economy, has gone beyond the sea sand sun trilogy. With the increase in the elderly population, most of the travelling has been for treatment purposes. The use of hot and mineral waters for therapeutic purposes in health tourism and affordable treatment costs have made this type of tourism attractive. Healing from hot waters has continued with the bath culture as well as thermal facilities. In the past, people did not only go to the baths to get clean but also argued that the baths were good for many diseases. In the baths, people both had fun and were treated with the healing of hot water. In this respect, it is possible to say that the service provided in the baths is related to health tourism. In this study, the relationship of historical baths in Sivas Province with health tourism and whether they are sufficient in terms of hygiene and sanitation were evaluated. At the same time, the differences that arise according to the demographic characteristics of the customers who receive bath service are also discussed. In the theoretical part of the study, health tourism and its types, the concept of baths, the historical development of baths, bath traditions, types of baths and baths serving in Sivas province, hygiene and sanitation concepts and the importance of these concepts in baths are mentioned. In the application section, a total of 220 (online and face-to-face) questionnaires were conducted between March and July 2021 to customers receiving Turkish bath services for data collection. The collected data were evaluated in SPSS 25.0 programme.