Evaluation of Tourism Development Strategies Based on Brand Equity (a case study in Shiraz, Isfahan and Hamedan)

Tourism industry plays an important role in improving employment rate and the growth of the economy. Despite considerable capacities, the tourism industry has not been developed accordingly in Iran. The aim of this research is to identify and rank the tourism development strategies of Iran based on brand equity. This research is categorized as an empirical study based on its subject while with respect to data gathering it is considered a descriptive case study. Statistical population includes well educated experts with appropriate experience on tourism industry. According to the results, brand equity, marketing strategy and travel motivation were the most important criteria. After analyzing the dependencies among criteria and identifying their weights with hybrid ANP-DEMATEL technique, initial strategies were screened and selected by Delphi method. Afterwards, selected strategies were ranked using TOPSIS method. Based on the results, the use of information technology is the first ranked tourism development strategy followed by improving of hoteling infrastructures.