Investigates the Contributory Factors of Coastal Tourism Improvement

This paper investigated the contributory factors of coastal tourism improvement with regard to sustainable tourism criteria. These factors were based on environmental quality correlated indexes. Through these factors, it is possible to identify the tourists’ preferences and requirements in order to improve the quality of tourism. The area which was explored in this study was Ramsar coast, located in the north of Iran. This city is one of the most important coastal tourist attractions in Iran. In this study, the data was collected through questionnaires. A set of coastal tourists were supposed to give their evaluations about environmental qualities. The data based on their perceptions was analyzed in the form of ordinal variables through statistical methods. Quantitative data was gathered through 196 questionnaires distributed to a sample of tourists in the coastal area of Ramsar with the Systematic sampling method. 17 environmental quality indexes were evaluated through tourists, and the data was analyzed with SPSS version 11.5. A principal component analysis was then applied in order to identify the factors. A Kaiser criterion was used for evaluating the suitability of factor analysis model was found to be 0.79. The proper index is 0.8. Bartlett’s test of sphericity was used to test the factor loading differences for the group of factors was found to be significant at 1%. Cronbach’s alpha was also found to be 0.855 for the questionnaire indicating that this instrument has an acceptable validity. The results obtained from the indexe's analysis of environmental qualities in Ramsar coast revealed that seven indexes out of 17 were less than average and were considered to have fairly quality. Whereas the other 10 indexes were more than the average and were considered to have undesirable quality. The quality of tourism environment at the coast which were based on tourists’ perceptions were identified and categorized as specific factors including, 1) cleaning, the natural qualities, and social security. 2) Tourism facilities. 3) Leisure space for families. 4) Traffic and accessibility. 5) Welfare services and hospitalities. For determining the correlation between factors and environmental tourism satisfaction variable and possibility of returning to the same tourist place, the Gamma correlation was employed. The results of correlation revealed that there was a significant relationship between the quality factors and environmental tourism satisfaction. The possibility of returning to the same tourist place was found to be significant at 5%. Moreover, all the correlation coefficients among all the quality factors in relation to environmental tourism satisfaction were lower than all the correlation coefficients related to the possibility of returning to the same tourist place. This difference showed that tourists consider other factors such as trip expenses, social criteria and, etc,. indicating to return to the same tourist place and quality factors include just a part of these criteria.