The Economical Effect of Trade Tourism on Urban Areas; case study: Baneh City

Cities in their evolution process are continuously impacted by their functions in a direct way and as a result of such impacts some changes are created in terms of spatial, economic, and socio-cultural aspects. Tourism is one of the main functions of the cities which have a noticeable impact on urban spaces. This article aims at investigating and analyzing the economic impacts of trade tourism and how it can play a role in cities economy, and how the cities are affected by such forces economically. In this regard, Baneh city has been chosen for researching such economic impacts. The geographic situation of the city and its proximity to Iraq has resulted into an increasing level of business transactions in formal and informal ways. The economic interests and benefits created from imported goods and exchanging them has formed a kind of tourism which can be called trade tourism that has expanded to the furthest cities of the country. In this survey some field data have been used and the research method was based on field work, library work and literature review and scientific analysis using SPSS software. Data collection process was based on questionnaire and the target populations were the experts related to tourism sector and urban affairs and those who were working directly in these sectors. Two questionnaires were used for collecting the data from target groups. In the first one the sample was 10 and in the second one the sample size was 263. The findings of questionnaires were analyzed through binominal distribution models and sign tests. It is revealed that the business activities and the employment resulted from this new function of cities in the absence of other sectors of economy like agriculture, industry and services, has left a considerable economic impacts on the city and has caused increased income and employment and higher level of land prices in the city.