Journal of Tourism & Hospitality

Journal of Tourism & Hospitality
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ISSN: 2167-0269

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Research Article - (2019)Volume 8, Issue 3

A Strategic Approach to Tourism Development Barriers in Iran

Nima Golghamat Raad*
 
*Correspondence: Nima Golghamat Raad, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, Tel: 989138050456, Email:

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Abstract

This research aims to have a strategic approach to the barriers that have hampered the development of the tourism industry in Iran. This study shows the application of MADM and strategic management tools in national tourism policy-making. In this research, PESTEL analysis is used to identify and classify the barriers that hamper tourism development in Iran. Then the Friedman test is carried out to rank the barriers. Then, the DEMATEL technique is used to determine cause and effect relationships between different types of barriers. After that, Importance- Performance analysis is done to identify the barriers that are the first priority of the country and need immediate attention. Finally, a set of strategies are proposed, evaluated, and ranked by CRITIC and VIKOR methods. This study identifies the most important issues and barriers to tourism development in Iran and proposes the most effective strategies to overcome those barriers. As the current tourism development strategies in Iran are proved to be ineffective and the situation of Iran in the international tourism industry is not comparable with the high potentials of this country, a strategic approach to tourism development barriers is absolutely necessary and valuable.

Keywords

Tourism Development; Tourism Strategies; Tourism in Iran; Multi-Attribute Decision Making; Strategic Management

Introduction

Tourism is one of the world's fastest growing industries as well as a major source of foreign income and job creation. The tourism industry of each country is rooted in people, places, heritage, and values of the country. The governments should make policies, plans to provide economic, social, and environmental benefits through tourism . The ability of the national economy to benefit from tourism depends on the volume of investment in tourism infrastructures and on ability to satisfy the needs of tourists.

Iran, a country with an area of 626336 miles2, has a unique diversity of cultural, ethnic, linguistic, climatic, architectural and historical features. Iran has 30 UNESCO-Registered landmarks and 74 other sites and monuments in the pilot list of this international organization. Iran has burning deserts, humid forests, and cold mountainous regions. Also, the existence of a number of sacred Shiite shrines in this country, has provided a good position in the field of religious tourism for Iran. Affordable costs, as well as advanced medical and health services in Iran, have made this country one of the most potent countries to become a medical tourism hub in the region and even in the world. Iran is comparable with countries such as Egypt, Greece, India, Italy and Turkey in terms of its historical significance and cultural and natural glory. Iran ranked first in terms of price competitiveness tourism in the world. Despite the high potential of Iran at generating income and improving the economic situation through the tourism industry, the indicators do not show a satisfying situation in this field.. The indices of the travel and tourism industry are brought in Table 1. The rank and score of Iran in each index are specified and then are compared to the best performance in that index. Relative Functionality of Iran in each index is obtained by dividing the score of the country into the best performance [1-4].

Table 1: Tourism Indices, and rank and relative functionality of Iran in them.

Code Index Rank of Iran Score of Iran Best Country Score of the best country Relative Functionality
I1 Business Environment 79 4.34 Hong Kong 6.16 0.705
I2 Safety and Security 87 5.17 Finland 6.65 0.777
I3 Health and Hygiene 93 4.72 Germany 6.86 0.688
I4 Human Resources and Labor Market 105 4.13 Iceland 5.76 0.717
I5 ICT Readiness 94 3.79 Hong Kong 6.47 0.586
I6 Prioritization of Travel and Tourism 117 3.55 Malta 6.18 0.574
I7 International Openness 109 2.38 Singapore 5.21 0.457
I8 Price Competitiveness 1 6.66 Iran 6.66 1.000
I9 Environmental Sustainability 119 3.61 Switzerland 5.8 0.622
I10 Air Transport Infrastructure 89 2.2 Canada 6.76 0.325
I11 Ground and Port infrastructure 75 3.1 Hong Kong 6.4 0.484
I12 Tourist Service Infrastructure 116 2.53 Austria 6.67 0.379
I13 Natural Resources 100 2.45 Brazil 6.13 0.400
I14 Cultural Resources 38 2.78 China 6.94 0.401

Iran's ranking in all the indicators is worse than average in the Middle East. Several reasons have been mentioned in the literature for failure of the tourism industry in Iran, such as the mostly unfavorable view of Iran in the world, political tensions with the West for more than three decades, poor and unstable management, weak and ineffective advertising, and lack of tourism infrastructures such as hotels, restaurants, efficient transportation system, sanitation facilities, and the regulations of Hijab in this country [5-7].

Literature Review

The World Tourism Organization proposes a framework for designing the Tourism Master Plan. The first and most important step is to formulate a long-term development framework for tourism (10-20 years) with emphasis on policy and strategy, planning, institutional strengthening, legislation and regulation, product development and diversification, marketing and promotion, tourism infrastructure and superstructure, economic impact of tourism and tourism investment, human resource development, and socio-cultural and environmental impacts of tourism. Then, divide the plan into short- term (three-year) action plans to expand sustainable tourism and prepare several demonstration projects for pilot areas. The responsibility of designing such a plan is on the National Tourism Organization (NTO) which is an official organization in each country in which planning for development and promotion of the country's tourism section is carried out. Comprehensiveness and power of this organization depend on political, social, cultural, environmental, and economic conditions of the country and the importance of the tourism industry in it. In the following, the experience of some countries in the development of tourism strategies is mentioned [8-13].

Myanmar tourism master plan (2013-2020) has 6 Strategic Programs including Strengthening the Institutional Environment, Building Human Resource Capacity and Promote Service Quality, Strengthening Safeguards and Procedures for Destination Planning and Management, Developing Quality Products and Services, Improving Connectivity and Tourism–Related Infrastructure, and Building the Image, Position, and Brand of Tourism Myanmar. This master plan consists of 24 key objectives and 76 activities. Then, 38 Strategic Projects are proposed for Implementation from 2013 to 2020. The estimated cost and priority of each project and programs are determined by the planners [14-18].

Vietnam has also prepared a tourism master plan up to 2020. This master plan includes the following key contents: evaluating the previous plan, resources for tourism development, SWOT analysis, development perspective forecast, development vision and objectives, direction of key areas development, and implementation measurements.

The tourism master plan of Kuala Lumpur (2015-2025) details out 47 initiatives that covers 9 segments and all key enablers. With the vision to transform Kuala Lumpur into a world-class tourism destination, these initiatives aim to enhance the city’s current tourism activities and enrich its offerings with new products and services. These segments are culture and heritage, shopping, entertainment, nature and adventure, luxury travel, sports, business and MICE, and medical and wellness. According to this document, steps towards designing a tourism master plan include:

• Identifying and building consensus on issues and challenges affecting the tourism industry, in particular the various tourism segments

• Developing a long list of potential ideas to enhance the tourism industry

• Prioritizing and defining clear initiatives for implementation, which include consolidation of ideas into themes and topics and assessment of each initiative based on ease of implementation and impact.

The Tourism Strategic Plan of Sri Lanka cites four main reasons for the failure of the tourism master plans, including coordination failures, institutional failures, market failures, and resource failures, and lists the causes of the failures [19-23].

Iran wants to develop its first tourism development document in the near future. According to the 20-year perspective, Iran's share of the world tourism industry should reach from 0.09 percent in 2004 to 1.5 percent in 2025 (around 20 million tourists). The active policies of Iran in the field of diplomacy and the nuclear deal have led to the growth of Iran's tourism industry and a clear future for it. The most important programs of the government in the field of tourism development are as follows:

• Modifying the current regulations and instructions

• Providing a credit of $ 25 billion and for around 1,300 projects

• Increasing the duration of the airport visa from 15 days to 30 days

• Issuance of electronic visa

• Human resource training for 16,000 people who work in the tourism industry

• Establishing tourism Information in 11 high-potential countries

• Developing international hotels and facilities and building residential centers

• Expanding the religious tourism

• Development of domestic tourism

• Supporting the private companies which have tourism-related activities in the web

• Expanding the transportation networks (land, air, rail, and marine)

Strategic Management tools and techniques are widely used by Iranian researchers to develop strategies for improving the tourism industry in this country. Some of these studies are focused on a specific tourism type, and the others study the entire industry. Scope of some of the studies is the whole country, but most of them focus on specific case studies. Medical Tourism has mentioned in several studies as one of the main strengths of the tourism industry in Iran. Ecotourism is one other important tourism type in Iran due to the climate diversity and unique nature of the country. Several studies have done in Iran that uses SWOT analysis for ecotourism strategic planning. Rural Tourism, Religious Tourism, Urban Tourism, and Sport Tourism are other types of tourism about which strategic studies and planning have carried out [24-28].

Although the methods and tools used in researches that study just one type of tourism are identical with those that study the entire tourism industry, the comprehensiveness of the strategies and development barriers reflected in the second category of research makes it more beneficial for policymakers and decision-makers in the tourism industry. Table 2 conveys some of the nationalscale tourism studies which have conducted to identify barriers to tourism development in Iran [29,30].

Table 2: National-scale studies about tourism development in Iran.

Tools and Techniques Result
Questionnaire and Statistical Approach Lack of advertising for Iranian tourist attractions in tourist destinations; inefficient ground and air transportation systems; poor hotel and accommodation industry; international negative propaganda against Iran; adequate training of people working in the tourism industry, and lack of recreational facilities.
Mini-Delphi Political instability, regional conflicts, mandatory Islamic hijab for tourists, and lack of investment are the most critical deterrents to tourism development.
Strategic Environmental Assessment Lack of high-quality welfare services, inadequate and inefficient advertising, political problems, and low level of foreign investment are obstacles of tourism development in Iran.
Questionnaire and Statistical Approach Categorizes the barriers into 7 groups including infrastructure inadequacy, and political, cultural, governmental, managerial, economic and human resource problems.
Delphi Lack of a coherent strategy for sustainable tourism development, lack of appropriate infrastructure, lack of integrated development programs, and poor governance.
Regression Analysis, Variance Analysis, T-test Lists a number of institutional, cultural, marketing, and infrastructural barriers
Fuzzy VIKOR Method Inadequate service and visa problems are the most important barriers to medical tourism in Iran.
Fuzzy Interpretive Structural Modeling Approach Managerial and financial problems are the main barriers to E-tourism development.

Methodology

PESTEL analysis

PESTEL is a tool in strategic management that helps the decisionmakers analyze the external environment of their organization and set their strategies based on the possible changes in the future. In this research, PESTEL analysis is used to identify the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal barriers that hinder tourism development in Iran. The barriers are listed based on 21 tourism experts' opinions in academic and administrative levels and obtained with the Delphi technique. Table 3 shows the list of the barriers in 6 categories.

Table 3: Tourism development barriers obtained with PESTEL analysis.

Category Description Code Related Tourism Indicator(s)
Political Barriers Political disagreements with some other countries have led to problems for the tourism industry of Iran P11 I1
International sanctions against Iran and its damaging effects on the country's tourism industry, especially business tourism P12 I2, I10, I11, I12
The politicians prefer more sparkling solutions with immediate results instead of long-term planning for tourism P13 I6
The tourism section in Iran is mainly controlled by the government, which has little regard to the private section and its role in tourism development P14 I1
Some of the tourism sector managers in Iran do not have related education, their management period is short, and new managers do not approve the works of previous managers and leave their programs unfinished. P15 I4
Economic Barriers The sanctions deter the foreign investors from entering the Iranian market P21 I2, I10, I11, I12
Financial pressures on government and society have removed tourism from the list of investment priorities P22 I2, I10, I11, I12
Instability in macroeconomic indicators in Iran has increased the risk of investment in this country P23 I1, I7
Socio-cultural Barriers Participation of the community in decision-making process is very low P31 I4
Most people in small towns and in rural and border areas in Iran are very poor and have low capacity to accommodate tourists. P32 I14
Massive propaganda against Iran (Iran phobia) in foreign media P33 I2
Most Iranian people are not pleased with the presence of Arab tourists in Iran due to historical issues. P34 I14, I7
Most people, and even those who are working in the tourism industry, do not know how to deal with tourists. P35 I14
A small percentage of people are fluent in English or in other widely-spoken languages of the world. P36 I14
Technological Barriers Web sites, mobile apps, and virtual tours are not yet widely used to expand the tourism services and advertising of this industry. P41 I5
Lack of modernized civilian air fleet and airports and world-class airlines P42 I10
Number, quality, and distribution of hotels and hostels are not satisfactory. P43 I12
The infrastructure of roads, railways, and transportation services in Iran is not developed and is very poor compared to many countries in the region. P44 I11
Environmental Barriers Destructive effects of the presence of tourists in nature, because of not considering sustainable tourism principles P51 I13
Damage of the unprecedented drought to the environment of Iran P52 I13
Unauthorized hunting of rare species and extensive destructing of forests P53 I13
Air pollution in metropolitans of Iran P54 I13
Lack of facilities and camping equipment in the majority of natural and coastal areas P55 I13
Legal Barriers Due to the low regulatory quality and weakness in the rule of law, there is not enough investment in the tourism sector of the country. P61 I1, I3, I5, I10, I11, I12
Some legal restrictions in Iran may discourage tourists to travel to this country P62 I7

These barriers can be seen from another perspective. Each barrier is related to one of the tourism indicators mentioned at Table 1. The performance of Iran in each barrier can be defined as the relative performance of the indicator that is related to this barrier [31-33].

Friedman test

Friedman's test is a non-parametric statistical test that was invented by Milton Friedman. This test is used to compare three or more matched groups. Friedman test first ranks the values in each matched set (each row) from low to high. This test is used in this study to rank the tourism development barriers. This test has been carried out with SPSS16 software. The results of this test are shown in Table 4. The test statistics show that the degree of importance of the barriers is not the same [34].

Table 4: Friedmzan test result.

Rank Barrier Code Mean Rank
1 P23 25.88
2 P11 25.81
3 P12 25.60
4 P33 23.69
5 P21 23.45
6 P62 20.07
7 P14 20.02
8 P13 16.74
9 P43 16.45
10 P15 15.74
11 P35 15.60
12 P61 15.12
13 P42 15.02
14 P55 12.52
15 P53 9.86
16 P22 9.10
17 P34 9.05
18 P36 6.60
19 P44 5.98
20 P41 5.93
21 P31 5.17
22 P32 5.17
23 P54 4.79
24 P51 2.40
25 P52 2.26
Test Statistics
N 21
Chi-square 510.934
df 24
Asymp. Sig. 0.000

DEMATEL analysis

DEMATRL stands for Decision Making Trial and Evaluation. This technique was developed by Fonetla and Gabus in 1971. DEMATEL is a comprehensive method for the development and analysis of a structural model that includes causal relationships between complex factors. DEMATEL operates based on directed graphs, and these graphs are able to display directed relationships between factors. The result of the DEMATEL method is the division of the factors into two groups of cause and effect. This technique is used in this research to identify the pivotal barriers that lead to the other barriers. The steps of this technique is brought in the following:

Direct relation matrix: A four-level scale is required to measure the relationship between the factors with the help of experts. This scale is used to describe the relationship of factors are: 0 (ineffective), 1 (low impact), 2 (high impact), and 3 (very high impact). The next step is getting the expert's opinion by pairwise comparisons. The result of this stage is shown by matrix Z, and its components are shown by Zij that represents the effect of criterion i on criterion j.

Normalizing the direct relationship matrix: The direct relations matrix Z can be converted into a normalized matrix of direct relations using eqns. (1) and (2).

equation (1)

X=S.Z (2)

Total relation matrix: After obtaining the normalized direct relations matrix (X), the total relations matrix (T) can be calculated using eqn. (3) in which (I) is the identity matrix.

T = X (I −X) −1 (3)

• Causal diagram: Summation of rows and columns of matrix T are respectively called D and R vectors. The horizontal axis of the diagram is called the Importance Axis and is equal to (D + R). Similarly, the vertical axis is called Dependence Axis and is equal to (D-R). Basically, when (D-R) is positive, the criterion is a cause. Otherwise, the criterion is an effect.

The matrix Z of this research is shown in eqn. (4).

equation (4)

After doing the mentioned calculations, the cause and effect diagram of this research is plotted. The diagram is shown in Figure 1 [31-33].

tourism-hospitality-dematel-analysis

Figure 1: Results of the Dematel analysis.

Importance-performance analysis

Martila and James developed and used the Importance-Performance analysis for the first time in``. Today, however, the IP analysis has become a well-known management tool and is widely used to identify the weaknesses and strengths of businesses, products, services, and the prioritization of improvement opportunities.

The matrix of this model consists of two axes: the horizontal axis represents the Importance, and the vertical axis represents the performance. The concept of each of the four regions of this matrix is this:

Quarter 1: Continuation of the current situation: It conveys factors with high importance and satisfactory performance. The best strategy for these factors is to keep the current performance level up.

Quarter 2: Reducible Area: This quarter encompasses factors with low importance at which the organization (or country) has great performance. Decision-maker would be better to put less attention to these factors.

Quarter 3: Lower Priority: It conveys factors with low importance and weak performance. As these factors are not important very much, they are not the top priorities.

Quarter 4: The critical area: It encompasses factors with high importance in which the performance level is low. These indicators seem to be at a critical stage and need immediate attention. The solutions that are related to these factors should be the priority.

In this research, the barriers whose ranks are 15 or higher are in the high-importance category, and the others are in the low-importance category. Also, the barriers whose related tourism indicators have a relative performance of 0.5 or more, are in the high-performance category, and the others are in the low-performance category. Therefore, the IP matrix can be developed (Figure 2) [34-37].

tourism-hospitality-matrix

Figure 2: The IP matrix.

Listing and evaluating strategies

At this stage, a list of strategies is created by reviewing the literature and gathering experts' opinions. These strategies help to overcome the barriers in quarter 4 of the IP matrix. The list is shown in Table 5.

Table 5: List of the proposed strategies.

Code Strategy
S1 Registration of cultural heritages in UNESCO WHS list, strengthening and preserving ethnic and cultural variety and richness, art and handicraft and renovation of valuable landmarks
S2 Reviving the celebrations and rituals of ancient Persia and holding festivals all year round all over the country
S3 Developing reliable tourism infrastructure in main touristic cities like Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Mashhad
S4 Investing in road transport systems, hotels and accommodation centers, medical and health services, and high-speed Internet.
S5 Strengthening local communities and reducing negative social and environmental effects of tourism
S6 Amending the plans and preparing detailed urban tourism development strategies
S7 Developing marketing strategies to increase the tourist arrival from the neighboring countries, Central Asia, and the South of the Persian Gulf
S8 Improving and diversifying health tourism products, services and marketing strategies
S9 Offering other tourism packages to health tourists
S10 Preserving the environment, tracking ecologically suitable principles, supporting different cultures, ethnics, races, dialects, and language
S11 Developing marketing strategies for the domestic ecotourism
S12 Diversifying competitive ecotourism products and services
S13 Constructing tourist accommodation centers and local and road-side restaurants, and public restrooms in ecotourism regions
S14 Sustainable development of coastal tourism through the construction of recreational facilities, sports, housing, transportation, and services
S15 Developing religious tourism and halal tourism
S16 Reducing tensions between Iran and Western countries, especially the United States, and increasing political stability
S17 Exporting cultural products such as Iranian films and music pieces, books, and articles to familiarizing other countries with Iran's cultural heritage
S18 Reduction of political disagreements with Muslim countries in the Middle East
S19 Development of websites and apps to promote Iran's tourism destinations in different languages
S20 Improving conditions for the presence of foreign investors in the tourism market of Iran
S21 Stability in tourism management in Iran
S22 Modifying the current tourism and visa laws and regulations
S23 Expanding the transportation networks (land, air, rail, and marine)
S24 Granting loans and other facilities to the private sector active in the tourism industry
S25 No mandatory hijab for Non-Muslim Tourists
S26 Hosting international sporting events in Iran
S27 Development of rural tourism and tourism in desert areas

The next step is to evaluate and rank the strategies. Political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, environmental, and legal impacts, are used to prioritize these strategies. The scores are obtained from experts' opinions. The experts are asked to express their opinion about the impact of each strategy on each criteria by a number between 0 (lowest impact) to 10 (highest impact). CRITIC technique is used to determine weights for the criteria, and VIKOR technique is employed to evaluate the importance of each strategy [38,39].

Criteria weights

The CRITIC approach is an objective method for determining the weight of the criteria. This is carried out by correlation coefficients and standard deviations. The first step in this method is to formulate a decision matrix in which the columns are made up of criteria and rows of options. In this method, there is no difference between positive and negative criteria in determining the weights [40,41].

The second step is the decision matrix normalization. Eqn. (5) is employed to do this. After this step, all elements will be between 0 and 1.

equation (5)

Then, the amount of available information in each criterion must be calculated. This value is represented by Cj (equation 6).

equation (6)

σj is the standard deviation of criterion j and rij shows the correlation of criteria i and j. According to the CRITIC, the higher the amount of obtainable information for a criterion, the more relative importance of that criterion. In step 3, the weight of each criterion is calculated using eqn. (7).

equation (7)

Table 6 contains the result of CRITIC technique in this study

Table 6: Weights of the criteria obtained by the CRITIC method.

Factor Political Economic Socio-cultural Technological Environmental Legal
Cj 35.8909 24.7251 27.6282 37.2038 37.3531 28.4871
Wj 0.1876 0.1293 0.1444 0.1945 0.1953 0.1489

Strategy prioritization

VIKOR is an MCDM tool that solves decision problems with conflicting criteria with different units, considering that compromise is allowable for conflict resolution, the decision maker aims to find a solution that is the closest to the ideal, and the alternatives are evaluated according to all criteria. VIKOR uses LP-Metric method (Equation 8) to find the best solution.

equation (8)

In this equation, wj is the weight of criterion j obtained with CRITIC method, P represents LP parameter, fij is the value of solution i in criterion j, fj and fjare the best and the worst fij respectively.

L1i is represented with Tj and can be obtained by eqn. (9).

equation (9)

L∞i is represented with Rj and can be obtained by eqn. (10).

equation (10)

Also, equation obtain by eqn. (11) and (12) respectively.

For positive criteria:

equation (11)

For negative criteria:

equation (12)

And finally, Qi obtains by eqn. (13). The less is this variable for a criterion, the higher is its rank according to the VIKOR method.

equation (13)

equation (14)

Table 7 contains the final ranking of the proposed strategies obtained by the VIKOR method [42-47].

Table 7: Final Ranking of Strategies using VIKOR method.

Rank Strategy Ri Ti Qi
1 S16 0.187628 0.612775 0.028244
2 S7 0.168218 0.622349 0.069011
3 S20 0.150965 0.665069 0.073335
4 S23 0.190071 0.454409 0.169728
5 S10 0.195271 0.418487 0.189922
6 S5 0.188213 0.364054 0.258775
7 S18 0.172531 0.390756 0.27402
8 S17 0.143658 0.454364 0.288611
9 S19 0.194491 0.295737 0.306435
10 S25 0.148922 0.411675 0.314956
11 S15 0.135868 0.400802 0.358525
12 S6 0.128187 0.41897 0.361244
13 S13 0.157629 0.299039 0.39774
14 S27 0.143513 0.331363 0.40373
15 S2 0.122767 0.355521 0.434313
16 S14 0.14116 0.277072 0.460402
17 S22 0.124722 0.292747 0.487868
18 S3 0.09657 0.362148 0.495209
19 S24 0.092825 0.325178 0.539288
20 S11 0.122339 0.241754 0.541543
21 S21 0.094892 0.302104 0.555521
22 S8 0.110506 0.252486 0.561829
23 S1 0.081243 0.238918 0.649416
24 S26 0.083199 0.226184 0.656287
25 S12 0.091754 0.173368 0.683654
26 S9 0.081713 0.166072 0.71617
27 S4 0.080228 0.129105 0.75446

Conclusion

This research employs a set of MCDM and strategic management tools to overcome the tourism development barriers in Iran. The results show that the main barrier to the tourism industry of Iran is the political tensions of this country some other countries. These tensions have severely damaged Iran's image and influenced the tourism arrival rate. Besides, tourism investors have no tendency to invest in the tourism infrastructure of Iran due to lack of political and economic stability. On the other hand, unprecedented sanctions on the economy of Iran have limited business transactions of this country with the world and decreased business trips to Iran very much. So in this study, the political barriers have been identified as the root cause of other barriers, especially economic ones. The economic hardships have hindered tourism-related construction projects, advertisement programs, festivals, events, loans, and other activities. Also, some legal barriers have made tourists disappointed from traveling to Iran. This research shows that the country has to focus on these issues to make Iran a more attractive tourism destination. The current tourism development strategies of Iran do not address these barriers, so this study has proposed a set of new strategies which are proportionate to Iran's problems and weaknesses. The strategies are ranked by MADM methods. The outcome shows that those strategies which are related to political issues (S16, S7), project finance issues (S20), and tourism infrastructure (S23, S10) are the absolutely necessary strategies for Iran's tourism industry.

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Author Info

Nima Golghamat Raad*
 
Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
 

Citation: Raad NG (2019) A strategic approach to tourism development barriers in Iran. J Tourism Hospit 8: 410. doi: 10.35248/2167-0269.19.8.410

Received: 18-Aug-2019 Accepted: 06-Sep-2019 Published: 13-Sep-2019 , DOI: 10.35248/2167-0269.19.8.410

Copyright: © 2019 Raad NG. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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