Determine the Suitable Time for Urban Tourism in Khuzestan Province

Evaluation of climate comfort and the suitable days for recreational walking in urban areas is a significant aspect of successful planning aimed at promoting the urban tourism industry. Khuzestan is a vast province in Iran with very high tourism potentials as well as climatic variety, and can be regarded as a tourism pole in Iran. This study aims to use the Equivalent Physiological Model for determining the number of climate comfort days in Khuzestan Province. To this end, the mean values of the daily data provided by eight synoptic meteorological stations during a ten year period (2000-2009) were used. Four meteorological factors were considered: dry air temperature, relative humidity, cloudiness, and wind velocity. The following cities were studied: Abadan, Ahvaz, Behbahan, Dezful, Iezeh, Masjed-e Soleiman, Ramhormoz, and Shustar. Upon feeding the mean data obtained for these cities to Rayman, the number of climatically suitable days for recreational walking in each city were determined. Upon taking into account the periods with negligible high- and low-temperature stresses, the output obtained from the computer model indicated that Iezeh with 168 climate comfort days was the most suitable city for accomodating tourists; followed by Masjed Soleiman (139 days), Ahvaz (130 days), Shushtar and Abadan (128 days), Behbahan (124 days), Ramhormoz (119 days), and Dezful (116 days). The results also showed that between late November and late March, Khuzestan Province would generally provide climatically favorable conditions for the visiting tourists.