The Status of Geo-Tourism in Public Policies in the Context of Iran Policy Agenda Setting Approach

Focusing on geo-tourism as one of the fast growing concepts within Iran’s tourism industry, both in academic debate and business market, this study aimed at investigating the status of geo-tourism in Iran’s public policies. We conducted a nonreactive research, collecting archival data from Iran’s Islamic Parliament Research Center Database. The research result of the content analysis show that from three hundred fifty three rules and regulations that were enacted over a period of 2001 to 2018, there were fifty eight geo-tourism policies. In next step we attempted to make a typology, bringing the identified policies into five different policy categories; geo-heritage development, accommodation development, infrastructure development, service and facility development and geo-tourism management development. As for frequency dimension of content analysis, the geo-heritage category stood in the first place. It seems that other components of geo-tourism development have not much considered by Iranian policy makers. It may be argued that the actors emphasis on geo-heritage development policy agenda, compared to other geo-tourism policy priorities, has been affected in the light of legal and institutional changes occurred between 2004 – 2006.