Grid Analysis of Attractions in Tourism Planning (Case Study: Attractions in Kashan)

Tourism planning requires understanding the interaction between supply and demand and their mutual effect on each other; hence, tourism destination planning is one of the most important factors for development planning. In the tourism system, only demand and demand increase is not important. But in supply, destination management needs to coordinate and co-operate with the tourism elements. Meanwhile, network analysis is one of the most up-to-date and most efficient analyses that, through the use of small hotspots, boosts their power over the top centers. Due to the weakness of gravity and the dispersion of many tourism destinations, organizing in a network will help to achieve these goals; hence, network analysis and its applications for regional tourism development are essential. Until now, the actual position of Kashan town, despite the cultural and tourist potential and attractions, has not yet been determined, and the dispersion of attractions and proximity to metropolises such as Tehran and Isfahan have caused most tourists to have a one-day trip to this city. In this study, in order to increase the competitiveness of these attractions in the framework of network theory, descriptive-analytic research method was used and data were collected using field survey method. The statistical population consisted of 1,164,124 tourists from Kashan over the past year. According to the Cochran sampling model, the data was collected from the sample of 483 people. The data were analyzed using SPSS, GIS, UCINET, and NODEXL software, and its density, degree, contrast, transmissibility, and E-I were computed, and gravitational graphs were illustrated. Results indicate that the attraction connections are weak and low, which is why most tourists visit the main attractions of the region. As a result, the deposition of tourists’ spending in the region is low and inadequate for the region development; hence, in managing regional development and tourism, efforts should be made to reduce this gap by strengthening the link between the region’s attractions, and provide a background for optimal use of the region’s attractions by establishing a full interconnected network.