Assessing the Quality of Tourism destinations in the Center of TehranCase study: Grand Bazaar (District 12 of Tehran)

Tourism has always been a factor of the development of the countries around the world and brings real benefits to the host community and directly contributes to the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) and employment. Tourism, such as a two - edged sword, on the one hand, it carries benefits for the host community and on the other hand, it has needs that the host community incurs costs and by influencing the economic, social, cultural and environmental dimensions of the destination can play a significant role in promoting or declining the quality of life of the local community. On the other hand, a high - quality tourism destination that can meet the tourist needs is also a source of strong income for that region. One of the most important destinations of tourism which has attracted many tourists in recent years, is urban centers. in Islamic countries usually this part of the city is playing with its market. Traditional markets are one of the main elements of the city that in addition to other ones such as mosques, schools, bathroom and infrastructures create city structure and if strengthening this part of the city and its adaptations, there are plenty of added values in these textures as historical spaces and tourism. Unfortunately, in recent years, historical places have faced with a shortage of tourists and they have not been able to attract tourists, as in the list of tourism destinations. Recreational places are preferred to historic places, and this is a threat to historical cities. The issue that arises here, is the quality of tourism destination, which is now become a world and non - tourist issue and tourist spots that want to reach their main position in this industry should pay attention to the quality of tourism destination components that cause tourist satisfaction. The central district of Tehran and the grand bazar of Tehran, which due to its historic and commercial and urban history and the capacity to satisfy tourists due to the multiplicity and diversity of tourist attractions in different levels of local, national and international levels, can be considered as the cultural and tourist center in this metropolis. Based on the high number of tourists that has been declared by the Iran statistics organization, strengthening and dealing with this part of the city as the history of Iran metropolis for attracting tourists and development of this industry, seems to be one of the most important factors of attracting tourists to the region of Tehran. Therefore, in order to bring this important city to its main position in the tourism industry and the benefit of the national and local community from the advantages of this industry, this issue must be discussed. The aim of this research is to evaluate of the quality of tourism destination of Tehran historical bazar. Many studies have been done in this regard that all of the infrastructure and structures have been analyzed, but the difference of this research with other studies has emphasized on the main elements of the quality of tourism destination and determining the suitability of those elements of the region and finally presenting a model for annual evaluation of tourism destination desirability.

This research is an applied one in terms of purpose and is descriptive-analytical in nature. At first, frequent indexes were extracted from theoretical foundations. After determining the criteria and indicators of the quality of tourism destination in the first phase of Delphi, these indicators were provided by experts in order to confirm its validity according to the local conditions of Tehran region. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by Cronbach 's alpha test. The results of this test are indicative of appropriate and convergent validity of the research indexes. In the data analysis section, the SWARA method has been used to weight the importance of each index.

Indicators are selected in eight main criteria and 37 sub - criteria (environmental criterion with five sub-criteria, physical criterion with seven sub-criteria, infrastructure criterion with four sub-criteria, social criterion with six sub-criteria, transportation criterion with six sub-criteria, tourism economy criterion with three sub-criteria, tourism product criterion with three sub-criteria, tourism product criterion with three sub-criteria). Criteria of tourism service with 0.5914, the infrastructure with 0.2414, the physical with score of 0.0918 and the transportation with 0.459 score are significantly better than other metrics.

Indicators of tourism, infrastructure, environmental, transportation are the priority of the region's planning, since this region has the trump card in terms of multiplicity and diversity of attractions and requires only proper management and monitoring and planning in this area. the combination of environmental quality indicators and the quality of tourism services in the assessment area indicate that tourism industry in the study area needs to be reconsidered and there is a potential of attracting tourists in the region, but due to the weakness of the desirability of the indicators quality (tourism destination, tourism services) and lack of awareness among the tourists and experts, this destination is not regarded as tourism destinations.