Factors driving the realization of sustainable urban tourism with ecotourism approach, Case study: Khansar city

Today, tourism as an industry, in addition to all its advantages, without proper planning can impose several negative consequences on the natural environment and human community of the destination. Therefore, "sustainability" has become one of the requirements of tourism planning. The present study, understanding the importance of this issue, has tried to identify strategies for achieving sustainable tourism for the city of Khansar. The method of the present research is descriptive-interpretive and based on documentary studies and field survey. Initially, sustainable urban tourism variables were extracted from valid domestic and foreign sources, which resulted in achieving a comprehensive range of variables in 13 dimensions, including the natural environment, pollutants and ecological hazards, economic, social, managerial, transportation, tolerable capacity of the city, health, tourist attractions, the foundations of the local community, physical or non-physical infrastructures of tourism and satisfaction with tourism. Then, the variables are entered in the Micmac software to implement structural equations model with future research approach, and pairwise comparisons between variables are performed by Delphi method with the participation of 15 experts. The output of the model shows the most important Impressive and influential variables in the field of sustainable tourism in Khansar city, based on which the proposed strategies have been developed. Findings show that the variables of "long-term plans for tourism development" and "existence of tourist attractions, historical monuments and their protection" will have the greatest impact on the realization of sustainable tourism in Khansar city, and therefore strategies having priority, should be based on them.