A Systematic Analysis of Positive and Negative Effects of IRAN Tourism Development Using a Future Study Approach

The rapid expansion of the tourism industry, besides positive aspects, can include many negative economic, socio-cultural and environmental issues. This paper, using structural analysis modeling, reviewed and analyzed the previous studies and experts’ opinions. The main purpose was to develop a model to identify and prioritize the influential positive and negative impacts of tourism on a national scale during tourism development process in Iran. The impacts include: (a) positive and negative economic impacts (including an increase in income, job generation, increasing the cost of living, inflation, etc.); (b) socio-cultural impacts (including an increase in social capital and participation, the revival of local values, increase in social gaps, consumerism, etc.); and (c) environmental impacts (including improving the quality of an environment, promoting the green architecture, reduction of natural per capita, reducing physical capacity, etc.). Structural analysis model was used to analyze the data using the Micmac software. The current study presented and arranged the most important influential and dependency factors in the economic, environmental and socio-cultural dimensions. The study pointed out that to reach a sustainable tourism system, the first priority is to concentrate on the influential negative impacts, especially on the environmental issues. The second priority is to focus on the reduction of the linkage and risk impacts due to their unpredictability.