This study was conducted with the aim of analyzing natural capabilities in empowering local communities to promote sustainable urban tourism development in Mahmoudabad city Sustainable tourism has diverse positive and negative impacts on local communities, including job creation as well as environmental and social adverse effects. Tourism studied area, besides exerting significant pressure on natural terrestrial and aquatic environments such as forests, plains, rivers, and the sea, has not yet attained its deserved economic, social, cultural status. The present research is applied in purpose and descriptive-analytical and field-based by nature. Data collection was performed through library research and fieldwork and the research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire. Based on Cronbach’s alpha test results, the minimum reliability coefficient for all variables was confirmed at 0.7. The research population consisted of households in Mahmoudabad and regional experts, with a sample size of 230 selected using Cochran's formula. Random sampling was applied for selecting the research samples, while 23 experts in the relevant field were chosen by convenience sampling. For data analysis, statistical methods and ArcGIS software were used; Shannon Entropy model determined the importance of indicators and the VIKOR model was employed for ranking indicators and options. The results indicate that the coasts and rivers index, which received the highest ranking based on the Q index, also ranked best according to the S and R indices, occupying the first place. Conversely, wildlife attractions ranked last among natural capabilities in empowering local communities towards sustainable urban tourism development in Mahmoudabad.
Rezaeitabar et al. (Tue,) studied this question.