Measuring the socio- cultural, economic and cultural impact of tourism development in Uramanat region

Today tourism is one of the forerunner industries in all countries particularly in developing world. The growth of the industry had different positive and negative impacts on socio-economic and environmental aspects of human life. The Uramanat region in post war era has attracted many tourists due to its unique natural and economic characteristics. The present study aims to investigate the socio-economic and environmental impacts resulted from tourism development in the region which it concludes some recommendations for sustainable development of the industry. The methodology of the research is based on descriptive and analytical methods and the data are collected by conducting a field work to complete the given questionnaires. The statistical society of research consisted from different experts and official figures of the region that numbered 85 persons. Since the number of the samples were small all of them were selected as sample society of the research. Also the research used the opinion of ten university professor to reach a better understanding of the current situation of f tourism in the region. SPSS software was used to analyzing and ArcGIS was applied to draw the maps. The results indicated that tourism development has positive impact on the socio-economic aspects on the region by creating jobs and increasing the income، promoted the quality of living and an introduction of the region to the rest of the country. But environmentally the region suffered severely from the increasing level of pollution، high traffic congestion، land use change which now threaten the sustainability of the area.