Abstract

As the site selection is one of the most important stages in tourism development planning, this study provides developed data for achieving this aim, observing the sustainable development regulations. In fact the main aim of this research is to introduce a framework for assessing the touristy potentials of the regions and ultimately site selection for establishing touristy complexes. The said site selection process has been designed in two stages and using two micro and macro scales. In the first stage of the process that includes site selection in macro scale level, a number of criteria have been proposed, by the help of which the selection of one city from among several cities would be possible for tourism investment. Introducing the criteria of the stage has been performed using AHP method. In the second stage of the site selection, entailing the selection of location in micro scale level, the introduced criteria help the users in selection of the best location for establishing touristy complexes using a smaller scale, across a city, for example. The criteria of this stage have been introduced using the land ecological capability and also the touristy attraction center of gravity concepts. For testing the introduced models of the research on an actual sample, the Isfahan province in Iran has been selected. Through implementing the first stage of the model in 21 townships of the Isfahan province, they were divided in four groups from Grade 1 to Grade 4. Also after implementing the second part of the model on one of the rural districts of Fraydoonshahr, belonging to the Grade 1 townships, an area of about 10 Km² of this district proved to be the best place for constructing touristy complexes.