Ranking Motivation of Geotourists for Selecting Badab-E Soort's Springs Using SDAC Model

Geological phenomena and sights are among the most attractive tourist areas, which can be considered in geotourism as the vision of future economy. Geotourism is the sustainable form of nature-based tourism, which mainly focuses on experience and perception of nature and learning about it, is defined based on comprehensive and sustainable development, and is managed such that its resulting negative outcomes are few and its benefits are maximal for local societies, providing their welfare causes. Iran has a beautiful nature with climatic variety and regions full of unique geological phenomenon and the investigation of these attractions is necessary for gaining more knowledge about them. Mazandaran Province which owns beautiful landscapes, unique geomorphological phenomena, animal diversity, and vegetation is Iran's one of the most important tourism sources. Maintaining and preserving these valuable sources, especially unprecedented geological phenomena which are the result of millions of years of change and evolution of the earth in this region, require fundamental measures and planning at international and regional levels in order for this global legacy to be preserved based on principles of sustainable development and commitments of present generation to the generations to come. To this end, it is necessary to identify motivations of geotourists for visiting a natural attraction in order to present a planning for the protection of natural resources and tourism development. In this research, the selection motivation of geotourits for visiting Badab-e Soor region in Mazandaran Province is investigated. The research method was descriptive-analytical. In order to proximate the ranking to reality and obtain better results, a combination of correlation coefficient and AHP Delphi method which is called synthesis Delphi AHP correlation (SDAC) was used. Results showed that the most frequent motivation of tourists visiting Badab-e Soort geotourism region was its natural attractions.