An Analysis on Capacity Building of Community-Based Tourism in Yazd

The tourism industry, with its own characteristics, is a dynamic industry with a bright future. Investing in this industry could play an important role in increasing national income while being free from adverse environmental consequences. Due to the increasing importance of tourism, it is necessary to analyze its impact on other dimensions. Possessing special potentials, the Yazd city is highly affected by different economic, social, environmental, and physical aspects of the tourism industry. As the Yazd province enjoys the required capacities for performing activities such as climbing, visiting the sand dunes and sand flows, hiking in the slopes of Shirkouh, etc., effective steps can be taken for improving tourist attractions through accurate and well-reflected planning. Therefore, this study sought to identify relevant factors, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in developing sustainable tourism, elaborating on an appropriate model for realizing this goal and analyzing a community-based tourism capacity building in Yazd. The required data for this "descriptive-analytical" study were collected from library studies, relevant documents, and the questionnaire administered on 50 experts and staff members of active tourism NGOs, which were analyzed and weighted using the SWOT-AHP integrated model. The investigated indices included attracting public participation (public mobilization) with a total average of 4/4, facilitating (offering information), institutionalizing and empowering local groups with a total average of 4/3, enhancing collective partnership system with a total average of 4/2, identifying entrepreneurship and job opportunities, and local needs analysis and its update, indicating that tourism NGOs possess high capacities for implementing community-based tourism in Yazd.