Strategies, Causes and Challenges of Cultural Development through a Tourism Development Approach Using Grounded Theory

Cultural development contributes to sustainable growth in the tourism industry.  The main role of tourism development is improving economic, social, and cultural development. Also, sustainable cultural development can be achieved through tourism evolution. This means that not only tourism must be sustainable, but also sustainable cultural development needs to be on agenda. Since Iran is one of the top ten countries, which has many potentials in the tourism industry, identifying its capacities is important. Moreover, developing accurate strategies and recognizing the challenges and obstacles of cultural development can turn this country into a top tourist destination in the industry. Therefore, it is necessary to study the strategies, their performance, and consequences in the tourism industry. Cultural tourism will have positive consequences if it is well planned and managed. This article aims to identify strategies, causes, and challenges of cultural development on tourism. This study employed a qualitative approach. Following the in-depth study of the relevant articles and documents, the data were gathered through in-depth interviews and then were analyzed using the Grounded Theory method through three coding stages (i.e. open, axial, and selective) using MAXQAD software.