Evaluation of threats and opportunities of ecotourism industry strategic factors (Case study: protected area of Jajroud)

Subject Areas : environmental management

Nasser Moharram Nejad ¹ , Mahsa Aghakhani ²

1 - Faculty of Energy and Environment, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University
2 - Faculty of Energy and Environment, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University

Received: 2007-05-06 Accepted : 2007-11-16 Published : 2013-03-11

Keywords: sustainable Ecotourism, strategic factors, IFE matrix, EFE matrix,

Abstract :

Tourism Industry is nowadays known as an important sector in the global economy. Among different types of tourism, ecotourism is a suitable means of achieving sustainable tourism. The protected area of Jajroud has a high potential to attract ecotourists due to its natural views and high biodiversity. This research mainly aimed at investigating current conditions of ecotourism in the region and its management to indentify the related strong and weak points and to make necessary changes in its management process with a view to upgrading the condition of ecotourism in the region. The applied method in this research is internal factor evaluation (IFE) and external factor evaluation (EFE) matrixes. All the threats, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses were identified after numerous field visits. In the next step and based on the experts and visitors viewpoints, a weight coefficient from zero (not important) to one (important) was allocated to each factor and then the weight grade was estimated by multiplying the grade of each row of factors by normalized weight. Finally, the total amount of weight grades with the average of three was obtained. Since the final grades of both matrixes were lower than the specified average, it could be concluded that the situation of ecotourism was not desirable in Jajroud. As a result, the creating and developing ecotourism in the protected area of Jajroud and altering the region into one of the ecotourism zones of Iran require the application of an integrated management based on environmental, social and economic elements.