Investigating and Analyzing the Impact of Human Hazards on the Development of Geotourism in Ardabil Province (Case Study: Nir City)

Geo-tourism is a branch of tourism centered on the earth's surface systems or geo-morphosites. Risk identification and management is one of the approaches used to improve systems. This research aimed to investigate and analyze the impact of hazards on the development of geo-tourism in Nair, a city in Ardabil Province. The present research is descriptive-analytical in nature based on two statistical communities related to tourism, i.e. domestic tourists who entered Nair and the officials active in the geo-tourism industry in the region. In this context, we investigated the risks affecting the development of geo-tourism in the study area. The results showed from the viewpoint of travelers the probability of health risk has the highest score 3.65 threatening the development of geo-tourism. Also, according to officials, the possibility of structural and functional risk with a score of 3.17 has the highest impact on the development of tourism in the area. Based on the results, the total score of the respondents on the impact of the cited risks was 2.72, falling in the low impact category not seriously affecting tourism development in Nair city. We conclude that by improving the situation in the study area and putting rehabilitation measures into effect, it is possible to minimize the possibility of risk in geo-tourism development radically enhancing tourism industry in Nair. We suggest that with further development in welfare, economic, health, infrastructure and law sectors in the coming years, it is possible to accelerate the progress in the geo-tourism industry in the study area.