The mass tourism movement, which started off in 1984 in the town of Belek, widely known as Belek Tourism Center, diversified with golf tourism in the 90s before taking its current shape in 2006. Inasmuch as the enactment of the 1982 Tourism Promotion Act supported the development of the tourism industry with a legislation, the Act played a very important role in shaping tourism in Turkey. Following its enactment, investment activities gathered speed in the south cost in particular, and Antalya has become a center of attraction for its diversity of resources and favorable climate. As a result of these developments, Belek Tourism Center has emerged as an important sub-center of Eastern Antalya Tourism Development Project.
The borders of Belek as a tourism center were first drawn in 1984 and the town was aimed to serve solely for mass tourism. The first planning project at Belek Tourism Center was created by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and approved by the Municipality of Serik in 1986. With this master plan, Belek was divided into two regions as East and West on 21 July 1986.
According to this plan, West Belek included Üçüncü Kum Tepesi and Taşlıburun sites. Two camping sites with a total capacity of 900 units on a 25-hectare area, and a 4500-bed accommodation facility on a 45-hectare area were planned to be built in Üçüncü Kum Tepesi. Taşlıburun was to see a 7200-bed capacity facility built on an area spanning 72 hectares. East Belek, on the other hand, included İskele, İleribaşı and Acısu sites. In İskele, a camping site with a total capacity of 324 units on a 9-hectare area, and a 4900-bed accommodation facility on a 49-hectare area were planned to be built. For İleribaşı, a Public Institutions Education and Recreation Facility with a capacity of 840 beds, a social tourism area with a capacity of 10,973 beds, and a daycation area of 15 hectares; and for Acısu, a 5750-bed facility on an area of 57.5 hectares were proposed. In addition, a regional park, where the flora and the fauna of the region would be preserved and the local people could visit for recreation purposes was planned to be built between Aksu and Beşgöz streams.
