Explaining Scenario of physical and functional effects of Shandiz tourism city development, Khorasan Razavi province

Tourism is a relatively new social activity that has recently emerged as a global phenomenon, and is considered as an important factor in social and cultural changes and development. Today, most experts recognize that the phenomenon of tourism can enrich all areas of human life in terms of speed and aspects of influence as the miracle of the century. Various effects of tourism development are observed in the city of Shandiz, Iran as tourists flood into the city. The development of tourism in Shandiz and its surrounding areas has led to positive physical and functional changes, such as the expansion of health care and accommodation facilities and increase in access to transportation. In general, factors including the desire to divide land and  establish complexes as neighborhood settlements and sites equipped for gardening and residence (temporary residences), consistent with the development of tourism in the city, cause the location and construction processes to neglect the natural environment, the requirement for infrastructures and relevant services, and the impact on existing settlements, resulting in widespread intrusion on physical properties and their destruction. Given the positive and negative effects mentioned in regard to Shandiz, this research sought to make an expert analysis of the future trends in the city in order to mitigate or eliminate the negative effects and promote the positive ones based on the model of sustainable tourism development. The study was focused on identification of scenarios for addressing the physical and functional effects of the development of the Shandiz tourism destination and on specification of the optimal scenario in this field.Theoretical FrameworkThe tourism industry can have significant effects as an important form of human activity. It is quite clear how tourism affects the destination area, where tourists interact with the local environment, economy, culture and society. It should be noted that tourism issues are generally multifaceted, and their categorization is not as straightforward as often stated. In other words, the effects of tourism cannot be classified simply as social, environmental, or economic, as they tend to exhibit many interrelated dimensions, and may change over time with the development of destination areas.

For achievement of the purpose of the study, descriptive-analytical investigations, documentations, and questionnaires were applied in the framework of the Delphi model and software analyses. After an enumeration of the key driving forces using the Delphi method, the method of future research was used to explain the various conceivable conditions for the future of Shandiz. Therefore, different conceivable states for each of these variables were discussed in expert panels, where the participants presented the pros and cons of each of the proposed scenarios. Then, the experts were asked to judge the effect of each possible situation on others on a qualitative scale from -3 (strongly restricting effect) to +3 (strongly promoting effect) according to the conditions prevailing in the study area. The expert judgments were incorporated into the ScenarioWizard software environment for presentation of system-compatible scenarios, ranging from the most favorable to the most catastrophic on a continuum involving moderate as well as favorable and catastrophic scenarios.

The findings of the study forecast three possible scenarios out of 39366 for Shandiz in the 2029 prospects, of which one was evaluated as favorable and two as unfavorable, although the results of similar studies have indicated the importance of land use change in the process of sustainable tourism development in cities. The findings of this study, however, demonstrate that culture and tradition have been the most important determinants of sustainability in the development of tourism in Shandiz. In an analysis of such results, it can be stated that the most effective assumptions here involve an enhancement of the traditional features of the fabric in the favorable scenario and their destruction in the unfavorable scenarios. However, destruction of agricultural lands was identified in this research as a negative consequence of tourism development, unlike in other studies. The findings indicate that moderate construction of buildings of residential use and enhancement of the traditional features of the city will effectively contribute to credibility of the favorable future of Shandiz in 2029. It is therefore suggested that the above factors should be focused on for achievement of a favorable future in the city in the field of tourism. Moreover, it will bring about greater stability in the favorable scenario to change the architectural pattern from traditional to postmodern, whereas the destruction of the traditional fabrics and agricultural lands in the unfavorable scenarios will lead to other destructive effects and threaten the sustainable development of tourism in the city.

The findings demonstrate that the destruction of traditional fabrics in the unfavorable scenarios of tourism development in Shandiz exhibits greater stability than the other assumptions. Overall, the optimal scenario for the future of the city is more stable and robust. For establishment of a sustainable space for tourism, therefore, it is suggested that the preservation of the traditional urban space and proper management of land use changes be emphasized. Thus, sustainable development of tourism in Shandiz can be achieved if the favorable scenario proposed in this study is adopted, which emphasizes the enhancement of traditional features in a context consistent with the culture, balanced distribution of constructions with residential, commercial and tourist reception, and accommodation and recreational uses, preservation of agricultural lands and gardens, improvement of the quality of communication services, connection of the new and old fabrics, improvement of architecture in accordance with the local culture and materials, and modification of the architectural pattern from traditional to postmodern.