An Analysis and Explanation of the Deficiencies and Challenges of the Typical Tourism Areas

Tourism has grown considerably over the last half century as an economic and social activity. Tourism is a complex and expanding activity and it is an effective blow to promote the livelihood, employment and culture of nations. Tourism is considered as one of the tools for achieving development, as such, the combination of both domestic and foreign resources simultaneously has many social, economic, environmental and cultural benefits. By 2017, the number of tourists has risen to over one billion and 322 million. It's expected to reach 1.6 billion by 2020, with a turnover of more than $ 2 trillion around the world. About 10 percent of the global economy's cash flow belongs to tourism and its related activities, and 12 percent of the world's total spending is provided through tourism revenues. In most countries, in order to identify and objectify tourism activities, with a view to achieve developmental goals, places are being marked to create tourism facilities and services to tourists. In Iran, the one-sidedness of the country's economy and the problems of unemployment and the incompatibility of current economic structures with educational structures and the emphasis of planners on revenues from other sources rather than oil exports necessitate the expansion of economic activities in various fields, such as tourism. For this reason, many local, regional and national planners are planning to develop tourism. The Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism for a variety of tourism facilities, according to the relevant regulations, has issued activity license to the private sector. One of the facilities that the organization licenses for the private sector is the Typical Tourism Areas. The Typical Tourism Areas are established as one of the tourism facilities in order to provide services to tourists and to reduce or eliminate regional imbalances and inequality of income and to create employment opportunities. The Typical tourism areas are areas approved by the regional and comprehensive developmental plans and have a specific area that is close to or within the range of historical, cultural, religious, natural or other attractions that may have the potential to create tourism facilities. The Typical Tourism Areas are distributed throughout the country and their number is 1,168. In general, based on developmental patterns there are two main approaches for creating the Typical Tourism Areas: 1. Creation of the Typical Tourism Areas in areas where there is a need for infrastructure and services due to the large number of tourists and the lack of welfare facilities. 2. Leading investors to areas that have attraction and potential, especially in less developed regions, which are unknown and by creating facilities and services, trying to identify these areas for attracting tourists to achieve regional development. Considering that out of 1,168 tourism destinations in the country, 240 regions are licensed to invest and operate and only 55 regions are in operation phase. this research attempts to answer this question, which are the shortcomings and challenges of the Typical Tourism Areas of the country? The present study is applied-developmental and in terms of purpose has been carried out in a qualitative method. The sample size included 63 people of investors and experts of tourism, has been examined as available samples. The method of this study is: after collecting the data, through the documents and the completion of the interviews and the questionnaire of the investors and experts, the findings have been analyzed with an analytical approach. Then, using the Delphi technique, the obtained findings were sent to the sample. After deriving and analyzing the data, it is specified that The Typical Tourism Areas are facing complex Deficiencies and challenges. According to the available information, in approving the Typical Tourism Areas, the requirements of the operation, the location of the regions, their compliance with the rules and regulations, their technical, economic and legal capacity are not considered. Using the Delphi technique in five steps to answer the questions, almost all respondents agreed on the most important deficiencies and challenges of the Typical Tourism Areas as follows: not having a feasibility study for most of typical tourism areas; statistical and quantitative attitude to these areas; the lack of proper relationships between investors and the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization; lack of proper monitoring of executive activities in these areas; vagueness in the boundary of most these typical tourism areas; lack of investment database; the lack of a coherent, precise and technical contract between the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization and Investors; the lack of cooperation of executive agencies in the development of tourism activities and infrastructure; some typical tourism areas are in the area of forest parks; some typical tourism areas are near the fourth areas under the protection of Environmental Protection Organization; Negative Consequences of focusing funds in the areas; Low applicants for large investments to invest in the areas; lack of cooperation of the operating banks to provide facilities to investors; low share of provincial credits to provide primary infrastructure for the areas; the length of the process of investigating and responding to environmental studies; the lack of a transparent procedure for the assignment of land and the length of the assignment process; abuse of national lands and increasing land price; Increased construction and land use change; increasing environmental pollution and environmental pressures. From the beginning of the establishment of the Typical Tourism Areas, the goals that have been portrayed by this approach to tourism development and subsequent development of the country have been diverted from its original path and now not only have been a problem in its tourism sector, but in many cases caused tensions between cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism organization and other executive agencies, the distrust of the private sector in tourism investment, the disagreement between investors and executive agencies. In the country, there are 1168 Typical Tourism Areas approved, which have many shortcomings, deficiencies and problems, and the existing problems have caused the operation and success of these areas to face a lot of challenges. In order to succeed the Typical Tourism Areas, these shortcomings and problems need to be addressed and to solve these problems, appropriate solutions must be considered.