Journal of Tourism and Development

Journal of Tourism and Development

Land suitability evaluation of Maranjab area for the construction of tourism village

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 . Assistant Professor of Geomorphology, Department of Geography and Ecotourism, Faculty of Natural Resources and Geosciences, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran. hmousavi15@kashanu.ac.ir +983155913225
2 . MSc graduate of desert combating, Department of Desert Sciences Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Geosciences, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran Corresponding Author: sharifianmojtaba61@gmail.com +989132610702
3 . Associate Professor of Desert Engineering, Department of Desert Sciences Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Geosciences, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran. aranjbar@kashanu.ac.ir +983155913241
10.22034/jtd.2020.110402
Abstract
Vastness of desert ecosystems in Iran and failure to complete fertilization of them in economic sectors have required attention to management strategies based on sustainable development of environment. The ecotourism development can act as a management strategy in line with the environment and an alternative policy to combat land degradation, ecosystem survival and optimum utilization of nature. Therefore, the aims were to evaluate the land suitability for scenario of tourism village construction in Maranjab. The Parameters of site selection model of tourism village are tourism attractions, access and services, landscape, natural resource protection and risks. Also, AHP model was used to determine wieght of criterion. Then weighted maps was obtained by applying the criteria weights on their digital layers. Finally, the combination of all weighted layers of model led to the preparation of land suitability layer that in order to determine location of zones, its weight ranges were classified into five priorities. Results showed that tourism attractions and risks criterias with weight 0.4064 and 0.0429 have the highest and lowest scores, respectively. Also, according to the land suitability map, the 49503 hectares of study area is very suitable as first priorities for allocation to tourism village construction. This zone has spatial compliance with the surrounding area of Maranjab Caravansary, southern parts of Salt Lake and northern parts of the Aran Erg. Existence of tourist attractions, access to roads and residential centers as well as the importance of them in site selection scenarios of the tourism village are justified this compliance.
Keywords