Strategic Planning for Tourism Developement in Shahinshahr and Meimeh County

In the macro goals of the country's social and economic development programs, the correct and sustainable use of existing natural resources to improve the quality of life of present and future generations has been emphasized. For this purpose, planning to create balance in the environment of the regions and equip development centers by expanding the infrastructure and production capacity of the environment according to the capabilities, conditions, and environmental considerations as one of the essential policies of economic development in different regions of the country is recommended. Today, tourism is a significant industry worldwide and plays a significant role in countries' economic prosperity. One of the important economic effects of tourism is the rapid growth of job creation, which has effectively developed and expanded job opportunities for different segments of society. The strategic-management process can be described as an objective, logical, systematic approach to making major organizational decisions. It attempts to organize qualitative and quantitative information in a way that allows effective decisions to be made under conditions of uncertainty. Although strategic management is not a pure science that lends itself to a nice, neat, one-two-three approach, the process is widely viewed to consist of three distinct stages as strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. A strategic plan provides individuals and groups with a way to deal with future threats and opportunities and their potential impact on the organization or community. In this regard, the present study aims to prioritize the planning strategies in the region.

 The present study uses the strategic planning process of the tourism capabilities and functions of Shahinshahr and Meimeh and its surrounding environment to determine practical strategies and guidelines for tourism development in the study area. This study applied two techniques such as the Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). In order to identify strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, interviews with experts and activists in the field of tourism have been made with the study of related texts and documents. This paper introduces the concept of MADM into SWOT analysis to construct a quantified SWOT analytical method. Therefore, it is constructed according to the four factors of decision-making as alternatives, criteria, performance, and weight. Alternatives refer to objects to be compared. Criteria refer to the key factors of external assessment. Performance structure refers to the weights of the critical factors. Performance means the performance of the object compared under the evaluation of all the key factors. The aim of applying the hybrid method is to improve the quantitative information basis of strategic planning processes. Finally, the most important internal and external factors promoting tourism development in the region were identified after screening. After obtaining the required information, the region's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats were weighed using the SWOT analytical model. Then, the QSPM technique was used to prioritize the strategies by completing a questionnaire and AHP in an Expert Choice environment.

The results of the SWOT showed that the tourism development plan is in the first part of the matrix, IE, the offensive or development strategy, which indicates the dominance of strengths and opportunities over weaknesses and threats. Weighing the importance of internal and external factors based on the AHP method also presented similar results to the SWOT model. The results of the prioritization of strategies based on the QSPM method showed that among the proposed strategies, planning strategy to increase the length of stay of tourists in the region, especially overnight stay, is the priority and a systemic view and synergy to the tourism capacity of the city and surrounding environment in the comprehensive plan of tourism is in the second priority of higher importance. The results of the prioritization of strategies by the AHP method showed that a systematic and synergistic view of the tourism capacities of the city and the surrounding environment in the comprehensive tourism plan is the priority (0.292), and planning to increase the length of stay of tourists in the region, especially overnight stay in the second priority (0.270) for tourism development in the study area.

The method used in the study can be applied in similar research related to tourism destination management. One of the strengths of the present study was that the relationship among elements could be helpful in better identifying the area, and attention to the surrounding environment can be practical in providing a more comprehensive approach. The result also showed that some key elements could simultaneously be considered strengths and opportunities, and a more realistic view of strategic planning and strategy formulation can be established.

There is no funding support. Authors’ ContributionAuthors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none. Conflict of InterestAuthors declared no conflict of interest. Acknowledgments We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.