Tourism Climatic Suitability Assessment in Arasbaran Forest Region

Visiting the forest is one of the most important ecotourism activities and the Arasbaran forest is known as a unique region for nature-based tourism in the northwest of Iran. In order to illustrate the tourism climate potential of the Arasbaran forest, this study was conducted using Tourism Climate Index (TCI) and Holiday Climate Index (HCI). Analytical results indicated that the most optimal climatic conditions were in the spring and summer seasons in the investigated region. TCI results classified the study area as having “Excellent” to “Ideal” category with scores of 86 to 92 and the spring and summer seasons were more pleasant for tourism activities for the period of 2001-2018. Results of HCI indicated that the study area having an “Excellent” to “Ideal” category with scores of 86 to 94 and the spring is more pleasant for tourism activities for the period 2001-2018. These seasons were selected mainly due to the moderate improvement of the thermal comfort in the spring and summer of this area compared to other surrounding areas, a slight increase in sunny hours in the tourism season, as well as the holidays becomes more frequent in the summer months These results may represent fundamental and useful background information to the tourist industry decision-makers.