Select the tourism area in South Khorasan province using the ANP technique

Tourism is one of the most dynamic economic activities in the present era, which plays an important role in the local sustainable development, and its development priority requires the recognition of affecting and limiting factors of natural, economic, social and cultural each region. Moreover, these areas areas reveal a special importance for tourists due to having a set of natural and historical attractions. Accordingly, the main objective of the present study is the selection and prioritization of tourism areas among the three areas "Banddareh-e-Birjand, Baghestan Abgarm Ferdows and Ghaen tourism area" in South Khorasan province by using the ANP method. Therefore, to obtain the appropriate results in the tourism areas prioritization in South Khorasan province a high level of ANP structure including subnet benefit, opportunity, cost and risk was used. The results of the ANP analysis demonstrated that Baghestan Abgarm Ferdows, Banddareh-e-Birjand and the Ghaen tourism area with having 0.59, 0.28, and 0.29 weights placed in the first to third priority, respectively. Among the subnets, the benefit subnet with a weight of 0.33 possesses more important as compared to the others. Furthermore, the strategic criterion of tourism potentials with an equivalent weight of 0.51 manifests a higher priority in comparison with the other ones.