A Literature Review of Geotourism in IRAN(Based on the Quantitative Content Analysis of the Articles Geotourism during 2007-2017)

In recent decades, a new branch of tourism has been formed that has a conscious contact with inanimate nature. Geotourism has grown as a form of sustainable tourism during the past two decades and has become an important activity at the local, national and international levels. Researchers with their studies play a significant role in introducing, teaching and evaluating the geotourism potentials. Numerous studies have been conducted on geotourism over the last two decades, which has developed and expanded the literature of this concept. One of the fundamental needs in any scientific community is the continuous, objective and comprehensive performance evaluation of the scientific activities in the community, which plays the role of giving feedbacks to overcome the barriers on scientific advancements. Considering the growth the literature of geotourism over the years, a review of the related literature seems necessary. The present study aims at reviewing the literature on geotourism using the quantitative content analysis and presenting an overview of the subject. Accordingly, a number of 99 scientific- research and scientific- extension articles in a period of ten years (2007-2017) were reviewed.

This study using the quantitative content analysis technique investigated and analyzed the geotourism articles published in scientific journals. The statistical population included all the articles on geotourism published in scientific-research and scientific- extension journals available on the online databases of scientific. In line with the research objectives, the available articles on geotourism in the databases of scientific included 99 articles, which were downloaded and the necessary information was extracted. The research time period is ten years (2007-2017). The indices used in this study include the process of publishing articles on geotourism, the key components in geotourism definitions, research methods, geotourism problems, and geographical dispersion of the study areas, participation rate of journals and the participation rate of universities. Excel software has been used to quantitative description of the indices and draw charts.

Research findings showed an increase in researcher’s attention and the growth in publishing geotourism articles in scientific journals. The publishing trend of geotourism articles is ascending and from 3 articles in 2007 it has reached 15 articles in 2017. Sustainable development, introduction of the phenomena and conservation them are the most commonly used components in the definitions geotourism. Destruction of phenomena, lack of knowledge about phenomena and shortage of facilities are the most important problems in geotourism in Iran, which are addressed to in the articles. Regarding the research methodology, about 43 percent of the articles had followed a combination research method (quantitative and qualitative) and 78 percent of the articles have practical goals. The nature and extent of the study area in research are included a variety of range from the catchment basin and landform till county and province that East Azerbaijan provinces with 10 articles was studied more than other areas. Geotourism articles were published in 42 journals that Geosciences Quarterly and Physical Geography Quarterly with seven articles had published the most articles. Researchers from 53 universities and institutions have participated in publishing article and developing the literature related to geotourism and the universities of Tehran and Tabriz published the most articles, In other words, 33 percent of geotourism article authors were related to these two universities.

The purpose of the present study was to analyze the geotourism articles published in a period of ten years from 2007 to 2017. The following results were obtained.  The publishing trend of the articles in the research period was ascending, which indicates the increase in researchers’ attention to this new branch of tourism.  Definitions of geotourism are often provided by foreign and domestic authors and the closeness of the components of the presented definitions indicates the geotourism researchers’ attention abroad to contiguity the international scientific literature.  Considering the significance of the fundamental and developmental articles, more attention has been need given to such articles.  Most of the studies were conducted in mountainous regions in the West and North West of Iran, while no studies were conducted on eight provinces.  Geotourism development calls for an investigation of geotourism problems and challenges and most important problems of geotourism in Iran, which were addressed to in the articles, include destruction of the phenomena, lack of knowledge about the phenomena and shortage of facilities.  Geotourism articles were published in 42 journals that Geosciences Quarterly and Physical Geography Quarterly with seven articles had published the most articles. Researchers from 53 universities and institutions have participated in publishing article and developing the literature related to geotourism and the universities of Tehran and Tabriz published the most articles.