Analysis of Socio-Cultural Effects of Tourism on the Religious and Historical Destinations (Case Study: Isfahan & Qom Cities)

the host community. Due to the increasing diversity of tourism, recognizing the effects of various types of tourism on the host community and understanding the differences and similarities between their effects is a necessity of planning and informed and normative management of tourism. This study aims to analyze the socio-cultural effects of religious and historical tourism in the cities of Qom and Isfahan to understand the differences and similarities. The research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of method, which has been done as a survey. The statistical population of the study was the residents of Qom and Isfahan where 384 people were selected by cluster sampling. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire and U-Mann-Whitney test was used to analyze the data and Friedman test was used to prioritize their socio-cultural effects. The results show that in terms of social effects, tourism has had the greatest impact on social deviations in Qom and on the lifestyle of the host community in Isfahan. There was no significant difference between the two societies in terms of cultural indicators.