Rural tourism in Idlib Governorate and the prospects for its development using Geographic information systems(GIS)

Abstract

       The research examined the current state of rural tourism in Idlib in terms of its tourism assets, and the impact of war on tourism the challenges it faces, and applying spatial suitability for rural tourism considering of the sustainable tourism patterns with developmental potential. The research relied on the descriptive-analytical approach, and the spatial using the GIS to produce maps, using Spss. The study concluded that the governorate possesses assets such as natural diversity, archaeological sites, agricultural resources.  However  investment is weak due to poor infrastructure, a lack of promotion, weak community participation, weak planning. The Swot analysis showed that strengths and opportunities are significant, a positive moderate- strength correlation was found between Toms index and arab tourists,reaching, with a coefficient of 0.657.

     The study recommends adopting development plans to activate rural tourism as one of the drivers of economic and social, by improving and developing the service sector, and supporting projects, and creating an electronic platform to market rural, and developing effective strategies and prioritizing areas with high suitability to contribute to creating employment opportunities for rural households.