Fundamentals of Geotourism (With Specical Emphasis on Iran)

“Geotourism means interdisciplinary cooperation within the purview of an effective and rapidly progressive economic activity, which speaks its own language; geo-tourism is a new business and job-creating sector. The basic mission of geo-tourism is to present and transfer a general overview of the knowledge of earth sciences to the public. Due to increasing specialization in tourism, including natural and cultural tourism, the need to write new books with new global approaches is felt more than ever. This book has been written as a reference book for tourism managers and students of geology, natural geography, environmental and mining engineering, economics, anthropology, archeology, human geography, and tourism planning with the view to acquaint ecotourism all those interested as well as ecotourism professionals with this fledgling industry. Natural heritage, along with cultural heritage, forms part of a nation’s identity. According to recent approaches, nature is not limited to the living nature, but a large part of the living nature is dependent on inanimate nature. The life of the living nature is directly related to inanimate nature. So far, more than half of the nature around man, which is inanimate nature, has been overlooked by the tourism industry, while the diversity of forms and processes of inanimate nature is no less than the diversity of living beings. Hence, tourism in nature begins with ecotourism and attention to the nature tourism of the living beings and is completed with the independent industry of geo-tourism and attention to geosites and the diversity of inanimate nature.

This book is a starting point for those who seek to enrich the applied science of geo-tourism and is dedicated to managers and researchers who, by combining the approach towards earth science with tourism intend to preserve inanimate natural heritage including geological, geomorphological, and mining heritage and so on and in this way strive for the prosperity of Iran’s tourism industry.