The Impacts of Mud Volcano Tourism on Developing Rural Areas

In fact, nowadays tourism is considered as one of the important tools for defining national and cultural identity, education, income and economical growth. Among the tourism fields the growth of ecotourism is very high that according to the forecasting from international tourism organization the 21th century will be the century of ecotourism. The objective of this research is reviewing the influences of mud volcano tourism on developing the rural areas. The method of conducting this research is descriptive by applying SWOT model. It means that mud volcano in Pirgol with having capabilities in tourism industry can be an example of tourism spots but it has some challenges and issues such as lack of investment and lack of infrastructures as the main barriers for its tourism.