Barriers to the development of ecotourism in Aligudarz Absefid waterfall

The development of ecotourism will not happen simply because of the beauty and attractiveness of ecotourism areas. In addition to the natural potential of each region, the development of ecotourism requires the existence of various factors such as welfare infrastructure, access roads, tourist security, marketing and advertising, and the like.  So that the absence or even shortage of some of these cases can be considered as factors hindering the development of ecotourism in any ecotourism area. The purpose of this study was to identify the barriers to the development of ecotourism in Aligudarz Absefid waterfalls. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with provincial experts to identify the deterrents. Analysis of data collected from interviews led to the identification of 34 concepts in 6 major categories of barriers. Then, a two-stage Delphi-fuzzy technique was used to reach a group agreement between the experts and to rank the inhibitory factors. According to the results, barriers the development of ecotourism in Aligudarz Absefid waterfall are respectively: cultural and social barriers with an average (0.828), poor introduction of the region (0.810), investment barriers and financial planning (0.803), infrastructural barriers (0.778), security barriers (0.775) and access and information problems (0.648). Therefore, the general proposal of this research is comprehensive planning, attracting financial support, and the efforts of nature tourism management decision-making organizations in Aligudarz city and Lorestan province to eliminate and reduce the mentioned obstacles through the executive proposals presented in this research.