Today, the tourism industry has been recognized as an important and influential factor in the global economy, and the various countries of the world are taking advantage of this industry to achieve sustainable economic, social, cultural development, and so on. In this industry, natural attractions have a dual value; one of the most important forms is ecotourism or natural tourism. Not only governmental organizations, but private organizations also have only a superficial understanding of ecotourism activities; as it is still at the beginning point, the economic, social and cultural effects of ecotourism’s development in Iran have not yet been identified. With the aim of identifying and introducing ecotourism attractions, this research presents a clear picture of the ecotourism conditions of Yazd province and the effects of these natural capacities on tourism development. Finally, there are some practical solutions for the development of ecotourism in Yazd province. This is a descriptive-analytical research and data was collected using documentary, surveying and field studies methods. The SOAR analytical technique has been used to elaborate a development strategy and to describe the strengths, opportunities, aspirations and measurable results. Based on the results obtained, with regard to the identified strengths such as the existence of areas of people’s participation in the tourism activities and Yazd province being located in Central Iran, etc., opportunities have been provided such as increasing employment and development of the province, which ultimately, will lead to opportunities, such as achieving a sustainable environment, reaching the highest levels of prosperity and comfort in the province, achieving full employment, etc. It is also expected to achieve results such as doubling of funding, the creation of a camp and a recreational hotel in Shirkouh area and the construction of a traditional restaurants with garden in the countryside of Deh-bala and Sunnij.

 One of the factors influencing human life, health and well-being, especially the factors that should be considered in tourism, is climate. Climate and tourism have a great deal to do with each other, so that having favorable climate conditions is considered as a potential advantage for tourism, and most travelers are mindful of the location and time of travel to the climatic conditions. The expression of the climate of comfort is usually expressed by indicators in which a set of meteorological, human and environmental elements are involved. These indicators present climate data in a way that reflects the response of individuals to climatic conditions, and in numerical categorization, range from very appropriate to very inappropriate. These indicators facilitate the interpretation of the complex effects of atmospheric elements on human comfort and make it possible to compare different places from an ecological point of view. In this paper, using the statistics of synoptic stations in Kurdistan province, human health conditions have been analyzed based on bioclimatic indexes (stress, effective temperature, CPI index and THI index), and the results are as follows: Months May, June, August and September have a very favorable climate, and the months of July and October have relatively favorable conditions for tourist planning and utilization in the province. In general, the best time to travel to West Azerbaijan is spring and summer, as well as the most unfavorable the tourism programs in this province.

Canvas tourism is a responsive journey to natural attractions where the environment is preserved and the well-being of local people is taken care of. The economy of countries that rely on a single source of income are affected by the least fluctuations in prices. Therefore, diversifying the sources of income of the country and relying on non-oil exports is one of the solutions. One of the strategies for the optimal use of diverse attractions is the development of tourism in the country. The present study is descriptive. The statistical population of the study was all households in rural areas of Damavand (25,655 households), of which 383 were selected by simple random sampling method. The research tool is a researcher-made questionnaire that has been constructed using previous studies as well as theoretical framework of research and includes economic indicators. In order to ensure validity, the questionnaire was put at the disposal of the experts. To assess the reliability, the results of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were equal to 0.903. Data analysis was performed using SPSS19. To analyze the hypotheses, one-sample-t-test and Friedman test have been used. The results showed that the implementation of ecotourism tours in Damavand has positive effects for local community.

Ecotourism is a new trend in the tourism industry that introduces landscapes and beautiful scenery of nature as its attractions. Therefore, it is essential to consider importance of its role in environmental preservation to achieve a sustainable development. Forest management plan VAZ 2 Series with an area of 2094 hectares and part of the watershed 49 in the north of Iran, plays an important role in this field with its rich ecotourism abilities and attractions. The purpose of this research is the priority of the criteria for determining the potential forest management plan VAZ 2 Series for ecotourism sustainable development using multi-criteria decision-making techniques (Entropy and TOPSIS). In this study, Delphi group decision making method was used to determine the criteria for ecotourism sustainable development. Also, prioritization of the criteria was evaluated by using multi-criteria decision-making techniques Entropy and TOPSIS. Based on the results of Delphi questionnaires, 10 criteria were determined for ecotourism sustainable development of forest management plan VAZ 2 Series. These criteria included slope, direction, elevation, soil logy, geology, road, typology, afforestation, view shed and hydrology. The results of weighting the criteria using the Entropy technique showed that slope with weight (0/168668), view shed with weight (0/092607), hydrology with weight (0/092478), road with weight (0.092437) have the highest weight among other criteria respectively. Also, the results of prioritization of the criteria using TOPSIS technique showed that geology, slope, and elevation, have higher priority compared to other criteria. Then, the layers were merged to creating plan VAZ 2 Series ecological capability map. Finally, their outputs were prepared as capability maps in four classes including very inappropriate, inappropriate, appropriate and very suitable for ecological evaluation of VAZ 2 Series. The results showed that 40% of this Series was in suitable class (837.6 ha), 30% in very suitable class (628.2 ha), 20% in very inadequate class (418.8 ha) and 10% is located on unsuitable class (209.4 ha). The results of this study indicated that the VAZ 2 Series forestry plan has the potential to provide ecotourism services.