Identifying and Ranking the Interaction of Structural barriers of Community-Based Tourism in Iran

Recently, the tourism literature has paid much attention to the role of society in all aspects of sustainable development and has considered the participation of society in tourism as an important challenge in the development of sustainable tourism. Local stakeholders often face numerous structural, cultural and operational barriers to active participation in community-based tourism. The present research has been done in terms of applied purpose and content analysis method. Data collection was done through library studies and was completed by a questionnaire using experts. Initially, 13 community-based tourism challenges were identified, endorsed and localized by experts; Then, the challenges identified by seven urban managements, tourism and university management experts were weighed using the SWARA method. Then, a model of barrier internal relationships was presented using an interpretive structural modeling approach. MICMAC software was applied to confirm the findings. According to the findings of interpretive structural modeling, the barriers were balanced at six levels and the barriers to the political attitude of the experts, the centralized government structure, and the distinct missions and goals; have had the most impact. Also, according to MICMAC, the six challenges include the political attitudes of experts, the centralized structure, the distinct mission and goals, the resistance to reform, the domination of the elite, and the high costs of participation; were identified as influential study variables. According to the results, the main factors that hinder the sustainable development of tourism are beyond the control of the people and local authorities. Therefore, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts at the national level should distribute power among city councils and establish a balance of power, so that local authorities can feel their impact on the development of community-based tourism.