The Role of Tourism Potential Areas of Mashhad Metropolitan Sphere of Influence in Sustainable Urban Development, Case Study: Abardeh Village

Reports of the World Tourism Organization indicate that tourism has become one of the largest industries in the world. What is important in tourism is its role not only in economic issues such as employment and profitability, but also in urban sustainable development. Moreover, tourism plays an important role in answering on one of the most important needs of human, which is the need to security, mental peace, recreation and entertainment that can be meet by going to the natural environment and spending some times there. In this context, the present research is aimed to identify zones with high potential for tourism in Abardeh rural district of Mashhad city, a region which has high tourism potential. The research method was descriptive– analytical with the practical aim which was performed by using documentary and survey data.Also, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to analyze data. Therefore, factors affecting zoning were gathered by using the Delphi method, and the variables were weighted based on the AHP method using Expert Choice software. At the end of this research, layers were integrated based on the weight of each criterion in GIS software by using overlay functions, and the value of each zone was obtained based on the all effective factors ,and also their weight, and all zones were then divided into three groups namely areas with high, medium and low potentials. The results showed that just 15% of the existing lands in Abardeh rural district have high tourism potential. So, for promotion tourism in this region, it is necessary to suggest tourist attraction land uses based on the potential of each zone.