Analysis of Local, National and Global Geographical Scale's Effects on Kurdistan's tourism development

Tourism is a complex and multidimensional industry that planning for its development needs consistency and convergence of actions in different levels of decision-making. Tourism development is possible when practical actions in local scale will be aligned with macro policy-making in national scale and current trends in global scale. This research intends to survey the effects of local, national and global scales on the tourism development in Kurdistan province and then while determining the most affecting scale in tourism development in the studied area, identifying the most important factors in the mentioned triple scales that prevent developing of tourism in that area. This research is an applied analytical-descriptive study which benefits from qualitative methodology. The data were collected through desk research and field survey. Main assumption of this research is that national scale due to its interstitial nature has the most influence on tourism underdevelopment and political factors that necessarily are not related to tourism, are the most important causes of tourism underdevelopment in Kurdistan province. The field and desk research findings approve both assumptions of research. This means that national, global and local scales respectively have the most influence on emergence of status quo and “weakness of transport infrastructure”, “security and political approach towards the local community” in local scale, “political and religious ideological approach towards tourism policy making” in national scale and “strained political relations between Iran and the West” in global scale are the most important factors in tourism underdevelopment in Kurdistan province.