Assessing the role of tourism activities in Cultural ecosystem services (CES) development (Case study: District 3 of Isfahan)

Cultural Ecosystem Services are non-material benefits people obtain from ecosystems. CES are connected to human health and well-being and cannot be out sourced , they are provided by linkages between people and the environment they live in. Todays with the unfavorable development and rapid growth of Isfahan as the third largest city in the country without the necessary infrastructure, in addition, the age of modernity and the capitalist world and the process of modernization, is no longer conceptualized by pure urban culture. So, obtaining cultural ecosystem services by people are becoming endangered. With direct relation between tourism and culture, this study target to identify wether tourism had able to develop cultural ecosystem services in Isfahan, district 3. In this research, library studies were used to collect data and information, as well as field studies including interviews and a researcher-made questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed in two ways: the statistical population of this study included experts in tourism and urban planning and citizens of Isfahan region 3 (n = 383). Validity was confirmed by the views of professors and experts, and reliability was also confirmed with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.93. Then statistical software such as LISREL and SPSS were used for analysis. It is worth noting that the results show that there is a significant relationship between tourism and cultural services in Isfahan region 3 (standard co-efficient = 0.43 and T =7.27) and 20% of cultural services changes due to tourism.