Tourism Industry Potential to Create Job OpportunitiesA System Dynamic Approach

Tourism development has always been a contributory factor to the improvement of economic development in most communities and destinations. Job creation, diversification of economic opportunities, income generation and national and local prosperity can be considered as positive effects of tourism development. Today, many countries are struggling to find new ways to grow their economy. Therefore, although there are different situations in different regions, tourism is always considered as a key factor in economic development. According to the Statistics, Iran does not have an acceptable rank regarding investing in tourism industry. However, according to the Iran’s 20-year vision document, this country must attract an acceptable percentage of world tourists by the end of 2025 as well as generating more revenue from tourism. The present study aims to study the impact of government’s investment on job creation in the tourism industry using the systems dynamics approach. In other words, it intends to forecast the volume of jobs created if the government initially invests in the tourism industry. In this study, a total of 6 scenarios were presented using Vensim PLE 7.3.5 software. Then, scenarios were compared and analyzed in terms of the amount of investment needed and the potential for creating employment in the tourism industry. Finally, several recommendations have been presented based on the results.