Strategic criteria affecting the development of community-based ecotourism in Arasbaran forests

Today, tourism plays an important role in the global economy. Among the different types of tourism, community-based ecotourism development is an appropriate strategy for preserving natural resources and cultural values. This development is possible through empowerment of local communities and causes the cultural, the social and the environmental stability. In the present study, group decision making approach was used in order to rank the strategic criteria affecting the development of community-based ecotourism in Arasbaran. According to the judgments of experts, strategic criteria affecting the development of community-based ecotourism determined and they were weighted using pairwise comparison analysis. The results showed that most of the identified strategic criteria were related to the weaknesses of laws and management, the strengths of natural resources, social strengths and threats of natural resources respectively with 9, 8, 7 and 6 criteria. The number and weight of strategic criteria related to the social strengths and opportunities revealed in Arasbaran region there are much good potential in the field of community-based ecotourism development.