Planning for Strengthening the City’s Economic Infrastructure with an Emphasis on Sustainable Tourism (Case: Ardebil City)

Abstract: In the present era, the tourism industry was introduced as one of the pillars of sustainable development and as a powerful tool for economic, social and environmental impacts which, while attracting the participation of the local community in the development of the national economy, has the potential of preserving and protecting natural resources, making environmental sustainability. Today, sustainable development policy is a public approach that governments have been considering to make ecologically sustainable tourism a promising local community in the long run. In this regard, the present study was conducted with the aim of planning sustainable development in the city of Ardebil. The research method is a descriptive-analytic type with an applied purpose. The data used in the research is documentary and field research. In order to achieve the most urgent and deterrent forces in the development of sustainable urban tourism, through the completion of a questionnaire and interview with 40 experts from urban tourism, effective strategies encouraging and inhibiting the development of sustainable tourism were formulated. Then, they were weighed and prioritized, using the network analysis (ANP) model. Finally, based on the most important adversary and deterrent forces, the most sustainable strategies for sustainable tourism development in Ardebil were extracted. The results of the research show that among the forces that encourage sustainable development of the city (creation of employment) the highest priority and among the inhibitory forces of sustainable development of the city (lack of sustainable management in the urban tourism sector) have the highest priority. Seven strategies were also identified and developed for the most important adversary and deterrent forces of city tourism development. Among the strategies proposed, the strategy (optimal and targeted utilization of increased incentives for travel among people to exploit the attractions and products of tourism in order to create employment and income for the people of Ardabil city) was selected as the best strategy. Moreover, in this research, the spatial pattern of the elemental inhabitants of Ardabil city was examined using the geographic information system (GIS) and it was determined that the tourism space of Ardabil city is influenced by the historical space of the city (old texture) and covers the central part of the city (area 1).