Investigating of affective human factors on tourism using combined method of SWOT and structural equation (Case study: Sepidan County)

Todays, tourism is one of the significant components of economic and social development in many regions in the world. Despite of high diversity of natural and cultural resources, Iran doesn’t find its real rule in indoor and inbound tourism. Sepidan County in Fars province is not excluded from this fact. Therefore, the present study conducted to investigate the human factors affecting tourism in this city.

In this research, affective human internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) on tourism in this region were provided on the basis of framework of SWOT method. These affective factors were questioned from experts in Likert scale. These answers were analyzed by structural equation modeling- partial least square (SEM- PLS) to survey rule of opportunities and threats on strengths and weaknesses of tourism.

In according to results, 50 percent of changes in strengths were determined by other factors and 30 percent of tourism weaknesses by opportunities and threats. In the model, rule of external opportunities factor on internal strength factor was positive and significance (p < 0.01), also the effect of external threats factor on internal weaknesses factor was positive and significance (p < 0.05) and there weren’t significant path between other factors in this model.

Tourism in studied area according to the significant effects of external factors on internal factors is in aggressive and defensive positions. Using the new statistical methods like Partial least squares (PLS)‎ helps to determine strategies for the future and guide direction of management actions with more evidence.