Determining contributory factors to attracting Foreign Tourists to the Desert Regions, Case Study: Sadeq Abad, Bafq

The major natural tourism attractions of every country or estate are considered as main capitals for development of ecotourism. Deserts are mentioned as one of the appropriate tourism attractions in Iran wherein are enriched by historical, cultural and natural characteristics and are capable of attracting many of eco-tourists annually. This investigation aims at examining the characteristics of deserts in order to identify and prioritize the influential factors in attracting foreign tourists to mentioned regions. Besides, according to theories of motivation and factors of attracting tourism to destinations, the tourist reaction and response is variable relying on economic, social, cultural, natural and environmental changes. This investigation highlights a case study on desert regions of Sadeq Abad, Bafgh. Accordingly the cross-sectional method is implemented and the statistical sample contains intakes of foreign tourists to the region of Sadeq Abad until Oct 2014, relatively numbers of 200 foreign tourists are randomly selected for the study. The main data collection method is the use of questionnaires and data are analyzed through factor analysis and the Friedman test. Likewise, the data analysis result illustrates total of seven factors with 56.83 percentage of variance in which mentioned factors are named as: health, natural, sports-entertainment, Services - Infrastructure, information and advertisements, economic, social-cultural elements. Similarly, the Friedman test proves that based on the average rate of 6.10 the social factor is the most significant factor from tourists’ point of view and it is due to security matter and following the social factor, the second and third important factors in attracting tourists to desert regions of Sadeq Abad are the factors of natural and training with the average rate of 6.08 and sports-entertainment with the average rate of 4.32 percentage.