The investigation of factors affecting the development of religious tourism across the Chahar-Mahal and Bakhtiari province: the case study of Hamza Ali shrine in Borujen

The religious tourism is one of the most common forms of tourism around the world and the tourism industry experts believe that, it could be more developed because of special cultural and religious position of Iran among the other countries. There are lots of holy shrines in Iran which a number of them have been recorded in the national heritage list and in addition to pilgrimage attractions they have cultural and historical attractions. The Chahar-Mahal and Bakhtiari province having a strategic position, linking the central tourism area to the west and south west of country and also having tourism resources and attractions can plays a major role in developing the tourism in west and central areas. The aim of this research is identifying the effects of religious areas on tourism development and Hamza Ali shrine has been studied as a case sample. An attempt was made not only to study the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which affect this holy shrine by using the SWOT technique but also, some proper solutions have been offered in order to improve its present situation. An analytical- descriptive method has been used in this survey and for data gathering we used library-documentary and field method. The results show that, the studied area have relatively high potentials for developing religious tourism in Chahar-Mahal and Bakhtiari by 29 strength points and mass value of 3.833 and 10 opportunities and mass value of 3.359 compared with 16 weakness points and mass value of 3.262 and 14 threats and mass value of 2.974 and if careful planning and above the all their strict implementation should be done, tourism development areas can be provided.