Explaining I.R. of Iran's Tourism Industry Challenges

Iran’s unique attractions and destinations has created a great potentiality for utilising tourism industry. However، according to statistics of the World Travel and Tourism Council in 2011، among 182 countries، Iran ranked 127th in terms of the contribution of tourism industry to GDP، 135th in terms of the level of employment in tourism industry، and 138th in terms of investment in the industry، while، according to the existing tourist destinations in the country، at least 5% of the global income of tourism industry should be gained by Iran. This number was 0. 4 in 2011، which is a sign of an undesired situation in the industry and failing to make use of the existing capabilities and potentials of the country. Therefore، it is necessary to identify and explain the major problems of this industry. This research is to realise a part of this end. For the qualitative part of this research، exploratory mixed method and qualitative content analysis were used. On the other hand، survey method and structural equations were used in the quantitative part. After acquiring theoretical sufficiency by interviewing the experts of the field and applying qualitative content analysis on interviews، some questionnaires were distributed in order to conduct a survey. Finally، 22 major problems were identified for the country’s tourism industry، classified into four categories، namely government sector problems، private sector problems، national level problems، and international level problems.