Evaluating of Development Potential of Desert Tourism and Its Impact on Socio-economic and Physical Dimension in Rural Settlements (Case Study: Villages of Khoor-o-Biabanak Township)

The term “sustainable” is nowadays widely used in order to describe a world in which the human and natural systems could live together for a long time. Attention to this issue and the necessity to evaluate the ecological potential and economic، social، and cultural capacities in various topics especially in tourism forces the development planners to identify the sources from different dimensions and to a logical and right exploitation. Due to this necessity، the ecologic potential was evaluated by using the systematic method and the Makhdoum Model. Then، the socio-economic indices were rated using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the socio-economic capacities of the Khoor-o-iabanak tourism site were added to the previous layers using the ELECTRE model. Moreover، the bioclimatic comfort for tourism was calculated using the TCI model. In the final step the basic strategies for developing the tourism sector in the study region were offered by using the SWOT strategic planning model. Results show the region mentioned has high potential for tourism developments-especially for desert and ethnic-cultural tourism. Also، the preparation for tourism development in the region could be provided through logical and rational planning and with consideration of concepts and teachings of sustainable tourism.