Positioning Qualified Lakes for Tourism Development in Fars Province

In the last years, lake tourism, as one of the newest forms of natural tourism has gone under attention of academic assemblies. The experts of the tourism believe lakes of a large capacity to attract tourists. These experts are somehow realistic, as the lakes and ponds are some of the most unique, beautiful, original and amazing phenomena, each including so exquisite, attractive, unknown and mysterious sights, that can attract lots of tourists. In this view, the numerous lakes of Fars province, shows a series of attractive visual interconnected elements for tourists. Therefore, the goal of this paper is positioning qualified lakes for tourism development in Fars province. Identifying the potential capable sights for lake tourism development, calls for Identification and analyzing the criteria, sub criteria, and several options of information layers. Thus, in the article, as the first step, the required information layers for positioning the Potential areas of lake tourism development are prepared, and then, because of the differences in the level of criteria, sub criteria and affecting options, 20 authors and experts in the field of tourism, made a binary comparison between these components, and calculated the final weight of each, using AHP Model. After that, regarding the final weight of sub criteria and options, the information layers were combined, using GIS software. The results of the combination of these information layers showed that the capable areas (lakes) for tourism development in Fars province are prioritized for suitable development, so that three lakes (Pareeshan, Herm- Kariyan, and Hiramm) are placed in very suitable domain; "Arjan desert" lake is placed in very suitable and suitable domain; "Maharlou", "Tashk" and "Bakhtigan" are placed in suitable domain; and finally, the lake "Kaaftar" is placed in suitable and very unsuitable domains for lake tourism.