Investigation of the Role of Geotourism in Sustainable Development in Ilam Province by Using Strategic Model (SWOT)

Tourism is an income-making industry with proper economic cost effectiveness and gets more attention by establishing socio-cultural interactions among different nations because of not having environmental pollution. Natural attractions of every country play an important role in tourism. Nowadays, ecotourists are considered as tourists who visit natural sceneries without serious damage to the nature. In the context of geotourism development and geological tourism, Iran has many potentialities and one of the most significant places is Ilam province, located in west of Iran. The existence of green hills, mountain ranges, water caves, streams, Zagros Mountains, natural geyser, Siāhgāv twin lakes, Bahram Chūbin strait and many more sites, all are considered as geotourism potentialities and capabilities. Existence of special geomorphological phenomena along with social and historical attraction, tourism villages and other natural attractions evolved Ilam province into a very optimal and standard place to this kind of tourism (geotourism) in parallel to economic development. This research has presented a strategy to develop tourism and geotourism in Ilam province by means of descriptive-analytical method to determine internal factors (merits and demerits) and external factors (opportunities and threats) through using SWOT model. Experimental analysis of the considered region showed that if geotourism is intended to achieve sustainability and play a positive role in the life of local population, proper policies will are required to be revised in order to resolve limitations and utilize possible relative benefits.