Proceedings of The World Conference on Management and Economics
Year: 2019
DOI:
Cross- Border Marketplace and Tourism Development Case study: (Sistine and Baluchistan province, Iran)
Ali Monir
ABSTRACT:
In recent decades, tourism is considered as one of the world’s biggest service industries and countries, with any level of development, tend to expand the tourism industry because of its impressive economic, social and environmental impacts. Border towns, due to their strategic location and the presence of border marketplaces as a kind of tourism attraction, have the potential to boost tourism, especially shopping tourism at local, regional, national, and even international levels. In the southeast of Iran, Sistan and Baluchistan has the longest land border of Iran with Afghanistan and Pakistan countries and its border markets can play an important role in the tourism development of this deprived area. There are seven cross-border marketplaces (named: Kouhak, Pishin, Milak, Mirjaveh, Jalagh, Gamshad, and Ramidan) as well as many natural and cultural touristic attractions in this province which unfortunately have not been used these potential opportunities so far. The main purpose of the present paper is to study the importance of the border markets and different dimensions of their impacts in the prosperity of various types of tourism development in the province. This present study is descriptive-analytic in nature. After studying evidences, the results revealed that the border marketplaces of this province have this potential to attract domestic and international tourists to its border cities. Moreover, the growth of various tourism (especially shopping tourism) in these poor cities can have different positive effects including increasing the security, creating a positive image of this area, improving the infrastructure and other facilities, reducing the transit constraints and improving political relations between nations and countries.
Keywords: Tourism development, Cross-border marketplaces, Shopping tourism, Border cities, Sistan and Baluchistan province.