Identifying and modeling operational barriers to community-based tourism in Iran

The idea of community-based development has long been emphasized by experts, but its acceptance in tourism is relatively new. Due to the fragmented nature of the tourism sector, it is thought that achieving the participation of stakeholders of target community, is very difficult or impossible. Therefore, identifying and classifying barriers can provide the necessary basis for interaction and participation of stakeholders as much as possible. First, by examining the theoretical foundations, barriers to stakeholder participation in tourism programs were extracted. Then, with the participation of 10 experts, localization was performed and the importance of the obstacles was determined. With the help of interpretive structural modeling approach, the relationship between structural relations and the DEMATEL method was obtained. Scattering and lack of stakeholder interaction, inadequate stakeholder analysis, divergent perspectives and priorities, differences in stakeholder policies and procedures, lack of coordination among stakeholders, limited resources, lack of sustainable development plans, lack of community participation, lack of consensus on plans and delays In the programs, the main obstacles are the participation of the stakeholder community in tourism programs, in which the dispersion and lack of interaction of the stakeholders has had the greatest impact and the limited resources have had the most interaction.