Process of Identifying and prioritization the sustainable ecotourism criteria in the desert regions (Case study: Yazd province)

Demand for ecotourism caused a comprehensive planning and paying attention to the environment and preventing from its destruction, to be a necessary case. Ecotourism development principles in the desert regions, due to the special features of these regions and fragile ecosystems include the distinctive factors and standards that are more focused on the effects of natural environment for tourism. Our studied region in Yazd province located at the center of Iran with extent of 131000 km2 is the third great province of Iran where 65 % of it is composed of desert regions. In this paper, our most important question was this that "what are the appropriate indexes and criteria of measuring the sustainable ecotourism in the dry and desert regions?" and also "what is the process of identifying the appropriate indexes and criteria of ecotourism?" .This paper introduced the appropriate indexes and criteria to measure the progress toward the sustainability in the ecotourism in the desert regions by a survey based and descriptive and analytical method and feedback from the experts in Delphi method. Results of the research were examined based on the T-TEST assumed in the level of 5%. Finally , 64 cases were introduced which in the meantime 28 cases of them for assessing the environment sustainability , and 17 cases of them for assessing the economic sustainability and 19 cases of them were introduced in the desert regions that were in accordance with Iran and ecosystems of these regions .