Ranking Cities of Sistan and Baluchestan Province Based on Cultural and Heritage Tourism Capacity Using ARAS Technique

Cultural and heritage tourism is a tool of economic development that leads to economic growth by attracting tourists. Attention and application of values protects cultural heritage and stimulates the revival of local patterns. Sistan and Baluchestan province has areas with cultural and heritage attractions that can attract many tourists annually. However, no measures have been taken for this industry to identify tourism capacities and provide equipment. This has led to a lack of tourist attraction and neglect of the attractive elements of tourism in this province. The purpose of this study is to rank the cities of Sistan and Baluchestan province based on the capacity of cultural and heritage tourism, in order to develop development strategies to attract tourists. The present study is based on applied purpose and descriptive-analytical nature.  First, by reviewing previous researches, the required indicators are collected and then the weight of the indicators is determined based on the opinions of experts and using the best-worst index method in Lingo software. Finally, using the Aras technique, the cities of the province are ranked based on the indicators of cultural and heritage tourism capacity. The results show that based on the total and relative utility scores, Zahedan (0.804), Chabahar (0.486), Zabol (0.379), Iranshahr (0.354) and Saravan (0.304) are ranked 1 to 5. In addition, solutions to promote cultural and heritage tourism in the cities of this province were also presented.