Sustainable tourism development planning in Maragheh city based on Swat technique

Due to its environmental and historical-cultural capabilities, the city of Maragheh has a high potential for tour-ism, which can be provided with proper planning and identification of its tourism advantages and limitations to achieve sustainable tourism development. Due to its dependence on agricultural products, the economy of Maragheh has been seriously damaged during times of frost and has a negative impact on the seasonal and permanent employment of the city. Therefore, investment in tourism can help to solve this shortcoming. Using the classic Delphi method, the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the tourism of Maragheh city were examined using the perspective of the city's tourism elites, who were 30 people in total, and the presence of experts is the basis of this research. The matrix table of priority, importance and consensus indicators shows that the existence of rich historical and ancient monuments in Maragheh city is considered the most important strength in the development of tourism in Maragheh region. Also, the components of inappropriate environmental and physical infrastructure are considered the most important weaknesses. Besides these, the rich history of this city is the best opportunity to attract tourists. According to the strategies proposed regarding the tourism of Maragheh city, more emphasis can be placed on the competitive/aggressive strategy, because the natural location of the city, the development of ecotourism and geotourism, and many historical records in the city prove that more attention can be paid to this strategy. However, this natural situation or the existing potentials in the sports infrastructure in order to hold sports competitions can also take into account the diversity strategy. Finally, one of the main solutions for the development of tourism is the development of infrastructure in all dimensions in the city. It is Maragheh.