To Identify Challenges and Opportunities of Urban Tourism Development in District 4 of Tehran

Today, along with the expansion of urbanization, changes in people's lifestyles and work- leisure patterns, the phenomenon of urban tourism is increasingly important. From this point of view, cities act as tourist destinations with a wide range of attractions and entertainment for citizens and residents, as well as for tourists and visitors from other places. The purpose of the present study is to identify the challenges and opportunities of urban tourism development in the district 4 of Tehran. The present study was a qualitative study that applied thematic analysis method to analyze the relevant data. The tool for data gathering was interview and 10experts were interviewed. MAXQDA software version 2020 was applied to analyse collected data, through which the main and secondary codes were extracted in three stages of open coding, central coding and selective coding. The results indicated that in the challenges section, the main factors of infrastructural challenge, socio- cultural challenge, managerial challenge, environmental challenge and economic challenge were identified. Sub- codes were also identified for each main code. Moreover, for tourism development opportunities, the main components of amenities, tourist attractions, motivational factors, cultural and social factors and human resources were identified. On the other hand, the components of educational and advertising measures, infrastructure and policy measures, cultural and social measures, regulatory and health measures, public transport fleet infrastructure and environmental issues were identified as solutions for tourism development. Findings showed that in addition to the facilities, potential and actual opportunities for the development of urban tourism, there are several challenges and obstacles, including economic, infrastructural, socio- cultural, managerial and environmental challenges and obstacles.