Tourism Strategic Planning in Areas of Central Alborz

Nowadays, the approach of strategic planning is prevalent in nearly all developed countries and it has formed the basis of a variety of rural development plans which have been implemented in different forms and under different titles. This Study is aimed to tourism development in the village of Afjeh. The matrix of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats has been applied to the planning of major strategies. Then, with regard to the position of village in the figure (IE), the optimal strategy for the region will be selected. These tools rely on information obtained from the first phase and then the opportunities and external threats would be compared with SWOTs. To present the various possible strategies effectively, the process of “comparison” between internal and external factors can play an important and crucial role. The final conclusion of the external factors evaluation matrix (the final score of 3.1) indicates that the opportunities for the tourism of the region have been more than its threats and so the macro strategies for the tourism of the region should be compiled, therefore the environmental opportunities can be used in the best way. Regarding the final conclusion of the internal factors evaluation (the final score of 2.46) indicates that the strengths of the region’s tourism are relatively lesser than its weaknesses and macro strategies should be formulated so that the available weaknesses could be overcome. It means that considering the village of Afjeh is in cell (part) “I”, a conservative approach based on internal maintenance and support should be adopted. It also must be noted that because of the proximity position of this village to cell (part) “II”, the adoption of an offensive strategy for this region should be considered.