The Role of Sustainable Development in the Expansion of Iran's Tourism Industry

This study aims to design a model for developing Iran's tourism industry with a sustainable development approach. The statistical population in qualitative research includes experts and specialists in the tourism organization and quantitative analysis, the staff of tourism organizations in Tehran and Mazandaran province. The sampling method is targeted in the qualitative study section and stratified in the quantitative random section. The data collection method in this research is based on library studies, review of texts, relevant and field literature and data collection tools through interviews and questionnaires. Purposeful non-probabilistic sampling was used to select the interviewees, during which the experts tried to have practical experience in addition to theoretical knowledge. The validity of the measurement scale is based on "content-dependent" and "structure-dependent" and its reliability is evaluated based on Cronbach's alpha. In this study, the Dalal test has been used to explain the structural relationships between the development factors of Iran's tourism industry and the sustainable development approach using the Dematel technique. The results show that according to the Dalala technique, the most important component is the competitiveness index from the experts' point of view. Also, based on the structural equation technique, it was found that all identified factors have a significant impact on the development of the tourism industry.