Analyzing the Economic Criteria of Urban Sustainable Tourism (Case Study: Zarjub River of Rasht)

Over the past few decades, inattention to the Zarjub River in Rasht, the degradation of the environment and the neglect of its economic potential has led to adverse consequences. Because this river has the potential for the tourism development as a sustainable economic resource, by choosing it as the case study, the goal of this research is considered assessing the economic criteria of sustainable tourism. Using descriptive-analytical method, in order to assess the current status of the river based on economic criteria of sustainable tourism, 400 citizens, 25 local experts and 20 urban authorities were consulted and the status of each criterion was calculated based on the average score. The criterion of "foreign investment attraction" with an average of 1.05 and the criterion of "land price" with an average of 2.80, respectively, have the lowest and highest scores among the economic criteria. In fact, all criteria in the current status are lower than average. In the next step, the strategies derived from SWOT were ranked by TOPSIS method. In order to weigh the criteria using the Shannon entropy method and also ranking the strategies based on the criteria, 25 local experts were consulted. Among the criteria, the criterion of "Citizen's willingness to participation in financial affairs" with the weight of 0.2772 is ranked first in terms of the impact on prioritizing strategies and among the strategies, the strategy of "planning for trust formation and increasing citizens' willingness to participate financially in the tourism sector" is in the top priority.