Do Place and Community Attachment Influence the Attitude towards Cultural Heritage?

Local people are an important stakeholder in terms of preservation and continuity of cultural heritage. Therefore, it is important to examine the attitudes and intentions of local people towards cultural heritage. The research was carried out with a total of 841 residents in the Bergama and Sel？uk districts of ？zmir, where the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage titled Pergamon Multilayer Cultural Landscape Area and Ephesus is located. In the study, a theoretical research model is presented and this model is being tested, which deals with the concepts of attachment and community attachment, and attitudes towards perception and conservation of cultural heritage. The proposed theoretical model has been found to produce good fit indices and, the residents’ attachment to place and community influenced the positive perception of cultural heritage and the preservation of the cultural heritage