The Assessment of Importance - Performance of Dimensions and the Indices of Integrated Tourism Management in Mazandaran Province Beaches

In coastal towns, using the coasts for developing the tourism industry has been in plans and policies to attract the tourists from a long time ago. Mazandaran Province has 15 coastal cities and 337 kilometers of coast line in which there are different kinds of economic-social activities such as agriculture, fishers, customs, residence, and recreational activities. In this province, the existing conflict and competition among well-known stakeholders for more exploitations of the coast resources and lands has caused serious, widespread disruptions. Therefore, in most regions, coast lands are seized and out of public access. Besides, the desirable development of coastal tourism, as the most potential attraction to attract tourists to these cities and boost local and small businesses, has been marginalized. some certain groups of people have the benefit of this type of coastal development.

In the present study, the “integrated management” approach, which has been introduced in 1990s and welcomed in many coastal areas in recent decades, is emphasized generally. An analytical model has been extracted by the help of literature review and previous studies and research. According to this model, 13 dimensions and 48 indicators for “coastal tourism integrated management” are presented in this paper. Using the survey method and completion of 406 questionnaires by four stakeholder groups: public, private, governmental and people-based related to coastal tourism development in Mazandaran province, the research data about the importance and performance were gathered (in a Likert five-point scale) in the summer and autumn 1397. To evaluate these data, an IPA (Importance - Performance Analysis) method was used. Although there is not any specific format to use this method, a four-phase method by Professor Lai and Hitchcock (2015) has been applied in this paper: 1. Defining the stakeholders 2. Determining the normality of distribution of data 3. Measuring the distance between importance and performance 4. Drawing of IP map (matrix). Moreover, T test is used with two pairs samples (t-value statistics). The result of this test determines the gap between the values of the importance and performance of each indicator. In the final section, the matrix or map of significance - the performance of the dimensions and indicators is displayed. Chi-square test was also used to measure the impact of demographic variables on their answers.  

The results of the Paired-sample t-test have illustrated that all investigated indicators have an importance - performance gap. It means the present performance average of these indicators is lower than importance value. Therefore, this difference was a negative amount for all 48 indicators. Moreover, in the last step of IPA, there is a matrix which has divided 13 dimensions into four parts. As the result of this analysis, only the dimension of “planning and policy making integration” is placed at the first quarter: maintaining (of the existing situation) with both importance and performance more than overall average level. Six dimensions, however, are located in the second quarter (named: concentrate here) which is the most important quarter. These dimensions are: “Stakeholder participation”, “organizational relationships”, “organizational attitude”, “leading and guiding”, “human resources” and “financial resources”. This dimension’s importance level is more than the performance dimension. Therefore, they need more attention in executing the coastal tourism integrated management. The other dimensions are placed in the third and fourth quarters because of a lower importance compared with the others. These are: “governmental-political integration”, “legal context in organizing phase” (in the third quarter named: low priority) and “ICT”, “legal context in monitoring phase”, “legal context in planning phase”, ”access to the facilities and resources” (in the fourth quarter named: possible overkill).

Unfortunately, the performance of all indicators of coastal tourism integrated management in Mazandaran province is less than their importance. According to the results of this study, only the third dimension, i.e. the planning and policy making integration, is in a good position, and efforts should be made to maintain the situation of this dimension. However, it should mentioned that the integration of “anything” in the terminology of policy has always been a holy dream for all planners. As Hall and Harkonen (2006) also argue, the implementation of integrated management in different areas is difficult, and in particular indicators such as the organizations' sustainable attitude, requires appropriate policies and programs from authorities. On the other hand, when the issue of the implementation of dimensions and indicators of integrated management in the specialized field of coastal tourism is raised, considering the conditions and importance of its development in the region, it will undoubtedly become more difficult and require efforts and wider cooperation.