Sustainable tourism promote economic development by protecting natural, cultural and local resources. The importance of sustainable tourism lies in its motives to conserve the resources and increase the value of local culture and tradition. The aim of this study is to reveal the impact of eco-tourism on the first declared pilot Eco-Agro tourism villages on the island of North Cyprus according to local residents’ demographic characteristics. Büyükkonuk and Bağlıköy which are the Eco- Agro tourism centers have become a brand in this sense. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was employed for the purpose of data entry manipulation, and analysis. A simple random sampling method is selected sampling method with a total of 274 people were interviewed. The responses were measured on a five-point Likert scale of 1 to 5 (1 indicates “strongly disagree” and 5 indicates “strongly agree.”) showing the extent to which the respondents agreed or disagreed with statements concerning the impact of tourism development. “Personal Information Form” and Questionnaire were applied. Also, the LSD test was applied to the data analysis in order to determine percentage, arithmetic average, standard deviation, chi-squared test, t-test, one-way analysis of variance and source of differences. Significant differences were found between local resident’s demographic characteristics, duration of living in this area, their working conditions related to tourism, being local (belonging) and perceived effects of sustainable tourism. Keywords: Sustainable tourism, rural areas, North Cyprus

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