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As tourism development is an unquestionable part of every national growth policy, this study aims to introduce an integrated method employing MICMAC analysis for understanding the key strategic variables of Iran's tourism development system.

The structural analysis with MICMAC method was used to determine the classification of variables, aimed at structuring ideas to deal with complex decision-making and help planners and policymakers formulate future-based strategies.

The cross-impact matrix was used to identify the development variables having the greatest impact on the development of Southeast Asian tourism to Iran. The results showed that among 43 variables, 10 have great potential as key variables in the future of Iran's tourism development.

MICMAC, as a structural analysis technique, is regarded as being the most appropriate to identify the key variables in the development of the Iranian tourism system. The limitation was that the other tourism markets, apart from ASEAN tourists, and the tourism demand-side were excluded from this study.

The present study indicates that identifying key factors that influence the supply side of Iran's tourism system is worthwhile. Consequently, the findings show how these key factors can play a vital role in long-range economic sustainability and lead to the development of Iran's tourism market to enhance globally its competitiveness as a destination to attract international ASEAN tourists.

This study is one of the first papers to focus on the development of Iran's tourism market from a supply-side through structural analysis. Its findings are valuable as they can be used by the tourism authorities in the process of developing future tourism scenarios for Iran.

Tourism in Iran and Iranian tourism policies are more a consequence of the country’s political economy than from explicit planning. The emphasis on adhering to domestic social norms, and the obligation on inbound tourism to obey these rules, have had no other result than a reduction of its markets. Iran’s present share of tourism is as low as 1/800th of the glocalized tourism industry. This chapter discusses the main factors influencing tourism development in Iran, particularly the political economy and oil.

Iran has significant potential for an international tourism industry based on culture and heritage. However, the rich fusion of Persian and Islamic cultures that distinguishes Iran from the rest of the Middle East is not easily promoted for tourism internationally, mainly as a result of successive American and European attempts at forcing Iran's isolation since 1979. Given that Japan was a significant inbound and outbound market for Iranian tourism in the 1980s and is a close trading partner of the group of countries aligned against Iran at present, this chapter focuses on the recent development of the Iranian inbound tourism industry with the history and current status of the Japan–Iran tourism connection.

This paper aims to identify and determine regional tourism axes in Hormozgan Province, Iran, as a region with significant potential

The research method is quantitative and uses the fuzzy accreditation tool and TOPSIS model; the identification, determination and ranking of regional tourism axes have been performed by analyzing the spatial distribution of tourism attractions in the GIS environment.

The results show that given the capacities of Hormozgan Province, at least 15 axes are recognizable. This paper highlights regional tourism planning as a tool for urban and rural socio-economic development in potential provinces such Hormozgan.

This study provides a number of practical implications for regional tourism development as follows: it identifies some of the most important potential axes in Hormozgan Province, which can be considered as investment areas in the national and regional tourism development strategy. The spatial results of this study could be embedded in all urban and rural developmental plans in the province. Tourism investment should shift its spatial concentration from the spot approach, especially islands and cities, to the axis approach while equipping those axes as comprehensive spatial strategic regional tourism plans. Sectoral tourism in each sector including sports, economy and nature could be planned as if sectoral institutions and organizations are going to develop their own tourism goals.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that unsustainable revenues in municipalities are short term and may have an adverse effect on urban systems. Focusing on stable financial resources can reduce such adverse effects. According to the legal obligations of municipalities in the creation of sustainable revenue, developing tourism-based activities in municipalities can play a significant role in providing a sustainable income.

This study aims to assess the positive effects of economic opportunities related to tourism for the municipalities in Iran’s large-scale cities and to identify the hidden opportunities of tourism. Also, from interviews and analysis of themes based on the situation, task, action, result model, tourism opportunities have been extracted and classified.

As a result of this research, hidden income-generating opportunities of urban tourism have been identified for municipalities, including those depending on situation, tasks, actions and results. For each of these categories, strategies for the realization of tourism opportunities are presented. Tourism’s hidden opportunities include those relating to organizational aspects, tourism planning, tourism diplomacy, handicrafts, health tourism, event tourism and urban tourism marketing.

By taking advantage of these opportunities, income generation, employment and urban management will be improved in the municipalities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize the positive and negative impacts of tourism on the process of tourism growth at a national scale in Iran, by taking into account the reviews of previous studies, views of experts and structural analysis.

In this investigation, structural analysis technique has been used to identify the correlation between variables by using mix method data analysis. By using cross-impact analysis (N × N integer matrix) in the form of the Micmac method, the economic, sociocultural and environmental factors have been evaluated.

The results of the distribution of factors in the coordinate axes and the graphs between them indicate their features, and for reaching a sustainable system of tourism development, at first, priority should be given to the negative influential factors, especially the environmental fields, and then the focus should be on the decrease of the dual and risk variables as they cannot be anticipated.

For the rapid growth of tourism in many countries, governments ensure that policies have been heeded in designing and preparing general plans of the country to understand how the development trend is moving on. In this respect, arisen impacts of tourism system are one of the important issues during the development path and in the field of tourism future. Because of the complexity and broadness of tourism activities, these impacts have also many interconnected dimensions that should also be considered while studying tourism impacts.

Iran is a country with substantial tourism potential. Iran’s tourism industry, however, was side-lined for decades due to international sanctions. The election of President Hassan Rouhani and the subsequent deal on Iran’s nuclear programme (reached on 14 July 2015) has resulted in softening of nuclear-related international sanctions and brought much needed relief to a struggling tourism industry in Iran. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the emergence of cruise tourism—as an attractive option for both domestic and international markets—with the introduction of the Iran’s first cruise ship, named “Sunny”, since the 1979 revolution.

This study is a short viewpoint piece based on the author’s interpretation of cruise tourism development in Iran and its future opportunities and challenges.

Following the nuclear deal, Iran has seen a substantial growth in inbound tourist numbers and attracted considerable investment in tourism-related infrastructure such as air transport and the hospitality sector. While cruise tourism is and remains an emerging phenomenon in Iran, it is evident that the country has a vested interest in developing this lucrative sector due to the country’s strong domestic market and potential to serve the international market.

This is an original topic which has never been investigated before. Cruise tourism is an emerging market in Iran and this study sheds new light on this new development. The paper focuses on the historical, current and future development of the tourism industry in Iran with a specific emphasis on cruise tourism.

This chapter discusses about tourism in Iran, an old civilization and a theocratic country where Islam is a dominant force. The majority of the people in Iran are Shia Muslims. References are made to conditions in Iran, its tourism industry, and the role of Islam in tourism and society. It is followed by discussion of Shia pilgrimage features. The findings show that while tourism has great potential in Iran, which is renowned for its diversity of attractions, tourism development is, however, constrained by several factors that limit the industry's contribution to economic growth.

A simple strategic marketing framework is developed based on responsiveness to purposes of travel. It entails identifying purposes of visit associated with a specific destination for potential tourists, shaping tourism development policy decisions based on them, and attracting tourists by directly fulfilling their wishes. Its focus is on what a destination can already offer and is contributory to short- to medium-term tourism development. A structured recognition of purposes of visit is suggested − encompassing 16 categories across four focus areas. To demonstrate the approach, generic strategic action plans are provided for each category. The framework is further applied to Iran, a country associated with a range of attractions as well as certain restrictions.

In spite of controversies in academia, various nations around the world have been propounding the importance of cultural and creative industries (CCIs) as the driving force in economic growth and development strategies. Accordingly, this research aims to understand how these industries could contribute to forming a cultural and creative policy scheme in an urban context that is structured based on local cultural assets.

The case analysis of Rasht city, a UNESCO Creative City, assesses the planning policies from the national to the regional level to determine the cultural policy planning platform of Creative Rasht in four phases of urban cultural resources, municipal objectives, festival urban branding and the role of stakeholders, which are fashioned by the integrated cultural identity and sustainable city. This is followed by semi-structured interviews with experts and young researchers in the field of culture-led urban regeneration to evaluate different phases of the policy planning process.

By means of the qualitative method and ethnographic research, this paper argues that managerial regulations for local cultural industries contribute not only to the reinforcement of cultural resources but also to urban cultural sustainable development.

Building on empirical research, this paper attempts to argue the significant role of local CCIs alongside social values in creating a creative city platform, given the necessity for an urban cultural platform in Iran. It also emphasises the importance of local communities’ participation in the decision-making process and awareness-raising among different groups of stakeholders.