Evaluation of destination tourism development in sustainability framework

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Abstract

Sustainable tourism development is a process that interacts with host life quality, visitor′ demands and preservation of natural and human environment. In the sustainable tourism approach, with an emphasis on the key function of hosts and guests' perception to understand and constantly evaluate their beliefs and imaginations toward tourism development in destination, subjective indicators are used and there is an attempt to extend this kind of indictors. The objective of this research is to evaluate tourism development in Tamashkel County in Tonkabon within sustainable tourism development framework. The research method applied was giving questionnaires to three key groups of local inhabitants, visitors and officials. The findings of research indicate that the process of tourism development in Tamshkel County results in degrading resources, dissatisfaction of visitors and negative perception of host and that it has a great distance from rural sustainable tourism development indicators. Therefore, it follows an unsustainable pattern

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