Determine the Key Factors of Tourism Development Based on Future Research Approach (Case Study: Mazandaran Province)

Today, the tourism industry goes beyond an industry, as a dynamic global and social phenomenon that has its own complexity and the exact recognition and scientific analysis of this phenomenon can provide a safe framework for the planning of the tourism industry. Tourism is considered as the greatest social mobility with cultural, economic and spatial multiple effects which always needs to be effective in its current and future development. In this regard, planning for the development of tourism is dependent on the various factors and conditions that can be achieved if they are systematically and structurally applied. This topic indicates the importance of future research and tries to formulate the future need prospects in the development of tourism. Therefore, in this research, it has been tried to identify and analyze the key factors of tourism development. In this study, the first 36 factors in five different areas of socio-cultural, economic, management and planning, infrastructure-services and extracted natural factors were obtained through environmental and Delphi scanning techniques and then, using the Delphi method of administrators. The matrix of cross-component effects of the components has been formed. For the next step, the Micmac software is applied in matrix analysis. The results of the dispersion of variables in the scales of influence and dependent of factors in the Mick-Mac software indicate the system's instability in the tourism of case study and on that basis, five categories of variables were identified. Finally, considering the high point of direct and indirect effects of factors, thirteen major factors were identified as key factors in the development of tourism in the cities of Mazandaran province. Among these key factors of case study the variables of the infrastructure and services sector had the highest impact on tourism development of case study, while the natural factors had the least impact degree. Undoubtedly, tourism is an organized form of human activity in production, consumption which has been an incredible and global attempt. Tourism with promise of employment is one of the most attractive development strategies that can play an important role in the broader concept of development, namely, competitiveness in cities. Competitiveness in any field is not possible without achieving sustained planning and based on the design of the key factors with future research approach. The awareness and understanding of effective issues and factors on development, along with the using of management approaches of future research and the design of key factors, are an effective feature of this approach. Therefore, the necessity of using this approach in the case study was proposed until with this way, key factors of tourism development would be identified. The present research is an applied one in terms of its purpose and descriptive-analytical in term of its method. Environmental and Delphi scanning techniques are used to identify variables and indicators. In this regard, in the first stage, online articles and a review of published articles in the effective factors on tourism development were used to collect variables. Then semi-structured questionnaire was distributed among professional experts in the field of tourism who were asked to score in the framework of the matrix of cross-effects of variables, based on the influence and dependent with numbers in the range of 0 to 3 points. In this research, a purposeful sampling method was used to select the participants consciously. The statistical population of this research is 50 experts in the field of tourism including the experts from the municipalities of the studied cities, the Tourism and Heritage Organization, and some university professors in the case Study. Validity of the questionnaire was reviewed and verified by the experts. The reliability of the questionnaire was also used by Cronbach's alpha. Tourism is a multi-species activity and dependent from large number of factors and influent on many phenomena. On the other hand, the necessity of tourism infrastructure in tourist cities and the uncertainty caused by environmental complexities make it difficult to plan and forecast the future in these cities. So that traditional programming can no longer respond to them, and the need for a new approach, such as a future research approach, has been raised predicting the future and explaining the solutions which can provide access to favorable conditions. Therefore, in this research, it has been tried to identify the key proponents of tourism development in Mazandaran province by combining the tourism system attitude with the future research approach.  The status of the dispersion page of the affect variables on the development of tourism in the cities of Mazandaran province is the unstable situation of the system. Regarding the system instability, five variables including determinants or influential variables, two-way variables, regulatory variables, dependent variables or outcome, independent variables were identified in this system. Finally, after conducting different analysis of direct and indirect dependent and influence, 36 factors were ranked and finally 13 factors were selected as the key factors of tourism development in Mazandaran province. This research is based on a new approach to plan (Future Research) with the aim of identifying key factors for the future development of tourism in the cities of Mazandaran, 36 primary factors include socio-cultural factors, economic factors, planning and management factors, infrastructure and service factors, and natural factors were extracted. Then, using the structural analysis in the Micmac software, these factors were measured. Based on the results obtained from structural analysis in the graph, the dependent and influence of the variables in case study show that the factors of the service and infrastructure sector with the total score of 502, the most influential and social and cultural factors with a score of 192, have the least influential on the future of tourism development in the cities of Mazandaran province. Finally, 13 key factors as the most influential factors on the tourism future of Mazandaran province were selected as key factors: Welfare services, urban green space, expansion of tourism-related spaces, competitiveness, regional transportation network, tourism tours, climatic conditions, private sector investment, urban transport network, security, Infrastructure, distribution of facilities. These factors are the most important factors influencing on tourism development in the case study. Finally, based on the results of structural analysis in Micmac software, among the five areas of the case study, the service and infrastructure sector factors were identified as the most influential factors on the system. However, it should be noted that selection is not enough and there should be an accurate and coherent planning about these key factor, so that, with the use of existing potentials and capacities, sustainable development of tourism in these cities is possible.