Prioritization of Appropriate Areas for Developing Ecotourism in Talesh County, Using GIS & AHP

One of the first steps towards tourism development planning for an area, is to have enough knowledge of the environment. In such a way that in addition to identifying the most appropriate locations for tourism development, the inappropriate areas or those areas at risk and requiring to be protected or revived, be also determined. So that, in addition to planning for offering the best and most profitable programs, the principles of sustainable development, be also preserved. Accordingly, in the current survey, using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the appropriate areas for tourism development in Talesh County -Which, due to having unique natural attractions such as mountains, dense forests, rivers, up country-historical villages, waterfalls and natural springs, as well as beautiful beaches of the Caspian Sea, are considered as one of the best counties of Gilan province in terms of having the ecotourism attractions- have been determined based on their priorities. For this porpuse, after setting 5 criteria and 27 sub criteria for evaluating the tourism potentials of the region through the paired comparisons questionnaire, they distributed these questionnaires among tourism experts of Talesh County. After evaluating these criteria using AHP, digital layers related to criteria and sub criteria in GIS system were prepared and combined, so that levels of environmental relevance for tourism development in the area be determined. Based on the findings of the current research, the central district with an area of 434 square kilometers of very appropriate quality, gained the highest priority in terms of tourism development planning. Other districts like Karganrood, Asalem and Haviq, have been allocated the most priorities, respectively.