Assessment of Management of the Use of Opportunities Caused by the Bam Earthquake in 2003 from the Iranian Tourist's Viewpoint

Environmental crises have positive and negative impacts on tourism, whose positive impacts include opportunities for black, cultural and religious tourism. This study is to identify the opportunities created by the earthquake in January 2003 for the tourism development and the effective use of these opportunities for the development of tourism in the city of Bam. This research is descriptive–analytic, and the method of data collection is documentary and field. In order to assess the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, experts’ opinions and Cronbach's alpha were used, and the collected data were analyzed by SPSS. The sample population is 270 tourists who arrived in Bam in 2014. The distribution method of the random sample population is simple random. Findings show that the people over the world know Bam with the citadel and earthquake, and the earthquake has become a part of the town’s identity. As a result, the earthquake ruins have created opportunities for the tourism development of in Bam, which has not yet been effectively implemented. However, directors emphasize the full reconstruction approach in order to restore the tourism markets and products of destinations tourism. In this approach, tourists who are increasing due to changes in destination characteristics are being ignored, such as those who are interested in visiting catastrophic sites and earthquake failures, or those who wish to see the victims’ day. In general, the Bam earthquake has changed the characteristics of the town’s tourists and created new opportunities for tourism development