Factors Affecting the Lut Desert Tourism in Iran: Developing an Interpretive-Structural Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article presents an analysis of factors that influence tourism development in Desht-e Lut desert of Iran. The methodology applied is quite interesting and can lead to important and useful results. However, the article has numerous flaws, among which I would stress the most serious ones:

• The structure of the article is not well established: discussion and conclusions should be separated.
• Some objectives of the article (informing authorities (lines 71-74) and introducing the desert to the global tourist market (lines 152-153)) are not related to academic research. By academic research, new knowledge is discovered and presented to the academic/scientific community. There are other ways to present the results of your research to the authorities (executive summary, addresses and research reports) or the tourist market (participation in tourist events, advertising etc.)
• The methodology used is not well explained. The Methodology section contains no references, no explanation on why these methods were selected (no arguments!). At the same time, the explanation of the steps is very brief, unclear and contains repetitions (lines 182-185 and 234-238).
• The results of the Mic Mac analysis repeat the outputs of the structural-interpretative model: both highlight factors C9, C15 and C16. So, what was the reason for using this analysis?

However, the most serious flaws are related to the ‘Discussion and conclusion’ section. You provide recommendations, which are not based on the paper findings. Or, at least, the relation of your findings with the recommendations is not straightforward (as it should be).

According to the findings, the most important factors for tourism development in Desht-e Lut are the following: media advertising (C16), safety (C15), and cost-effective travel (C9). However, in the discussions you speak about: government strategic plans (line 337), building international relations (line 342), strengthening the competitive advantage (lines 352-353), investments (lines 359), infrastructure and welfare facilities (lines 383-384). All these did not constitute the subject of the analysis and were not mentioned among the 16 factors you selected for it. In addition, you conclude (lines 392-394) that tourism in Desht-e Lut will help following goals and programs of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but you do not analyze how it can be made possible.

In conclusion, I think that the analysis of the tourism drivers in Desht-e Lut desert realized by the authors is interesting and deserves to be published. However, the way it was presented should be completely changed.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

1. The structure of the article is not well established: discussion and conclusions should be separated.

discussion and conclusions should be separated

2. Some objectives of the article (informing authorities (lines 71-74) and introducing the desert to the global tourist market (lines 152-153)) are not related to academic research. By academic research, new knowledge is discovered and presented to the academic/scientific community. There are other ways to present the results of your research to the authorities (executive summary, addresses and research reports) or the tourist market (participation in tourist events, advertising etc.)

In general, Until two years ago, desert tourism was not considered at all in Iran. Meanwhile, the deserts are one of the most attractive travel destinations among tourists. Therefore, the present study was conducted to emphasize the importance of desert tourism in Iran. Thus, important and attractive tourist factors on Lut desert tourism will be explored and the importance of each of these factors will be determined. The research gap is to investigate the factors affecting the development of Lut desert tourism.

This study seeks to highlight the importance of Lut Desert tourism. Also, as an academic research, introduce Lut Desert academically to desert tourism enthusiasts and investigate the development factors of Lut desert tourism.

3. The methodology used is not well explained. The Methodology section contains no references, no explanation on why these methods were selected (no arguments!). At the same time, the explanation of the steps is very brief, unclear and contains repetitions (lines 182-185 and 234-238).

Initially, 30 factors affecting Lut Desert tourism were identified, but using the Delphi questionnaire, experts were asked to select the most important factors. Finally, 16 factors were selected to continue the research.

Justification for ism: Interpretive-structural modeling is a systematic and structured method for creating and understanding relationships between elements of a complex system(Warfield, 1974), introduced in 1974 by Warfield. ISM is a powerful qualitative tool in various fields and a suitable technique for analyzing the impact of one element on other elements and examines the complex relationships between the elements of a system(Kannan et al, 2009). Also helps to create and direct complex relationships between the elements of a system(Taghizadeh and Shokri, 2014). In this method, the judgment of a group of people determines whether there are relationships between these elements or not. The main idea of interpretive structural modeling is to break down a complex system into several subsystems using expert knowledge to construct a multilevel structural model(Ali Akbari and Akbari, 2017).

4. The results of the Mic Mac analysis repeat the outputs of the structural-interpretative model: both highlight factors C9, C15 and C16. So, what was the reason for using this analysis?

MICMAC analysis is based on the driving power (influence) and the degree of dependence (influence) of each variable. It allows you to further examine the range of each of the variables. In this method, the importance of variables is measured more based on indirect relationships between them. In this analysis, the variables are divided into four groups: autonomous, dependent, connected and independent.

5. According to the findings, the most important factors for tourism development in Desht-e Lut are the following: media advertising (C16), safety (C15), and cost-effective travel (C9). However, in the discussions you speak about: government strategic plans (line 337), building international relations (line 342), strengthening the competitive advantage (lines 352-353), investments (lines 359), infrastructure and welfare facilities (lines 383-384). All these did not constitute the subject of the analysis and were not mentioned among the 16 factors you selected for it. In addition, you conclude (lines 392-394) that tourism in Desht-e Lut will help following goals and programs of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but you do not analyze how it can be made possible.

According to MicMac analysis, the cost-effectiveness of travel (C9), security and safety of the desert (C15), and media advertising and attractive depiction (branding) of Dasht-e Lut (C16) are vital in the development of Lut desert tourism.

Choosing a travel destination is often associated with affordability. This means that tourists prefer to visit attractive places at a lower cost. Cost is a key factor in choosing a tourist destination. Lut Desert is now a place that tourists can visit at a low cost. Because so far there has been no economic view of Lut Desert tourism (of course this is a negative point) and visiting the desert is almost free. Therefore, tourists can travel to this place only by providing transportation tickets and food. Because traveling to the Lut Desert is cheap, in the last two years a large number of tourists have been interested in traveling to the Lut Desert.

Today, safety and security is considered as the most important and fundamental principle in formulating tourism development strategy in the world. There is a defined relationship between tourism, stability, development and security and any occurrence of insecurity and the use of violence at various levels will cause irreparable damage to the tourism industry (Seidai and Hedayati Moghadam, 2010).

Security in the development of Lut desert tourism can be analyzed from two dimensions. Internal security and external security. Internal security goes back to Iranian tourists. Tourists usually prefer to travel to safer areas. And be able to enjoy their trip enough. In the Internal dimension, since domestic tourists know all regions of Iran, so they are also aware of its security issues. Therefore, security is a very key factor in their decision making. Hence, stablishing the sustainable security in the Lut Desert can attract domestic tourists. But the international dimension of security goes back to the attitude of foreign tourists. The relationship between national security and tourism must be considered, so that a new definition of national security in the shadow of the presence of foreign tourists and the recognition of domestic capacities is necessary. By continuing de-escalation policies in foreign relations and reducing international sensitivities towards Iran's foreign policies, it is possible to help create a favorable environment for attracting tourists.

Advertisements make tourists familiar with the area before traveling to the Lut Desert. Through advertising, the tourist obtains complete information about the geographical location, attractions, infrastructure, etc. Lut Desert Tourism Management was established in 2020. They must develop the propaganda programs of the Lut Desert and take the necessary measures to implement them. In addition, all national, regional, provincial, urban and even rural organizations should work to highlight Lut Desert tourism. Of course, in addition to advertising, marketing should not be neglected.

Reviewer 2 Report

In my opinion, the research presented in the article is of outstanding interest for the advancement of the country concerned and neighboring countries. However, the text has a series of deficiencies that must be fully corrected in order to proceed with its publication, both those related to defects of form as well as those related to methodology and content.

It is surprising that the abstract is formed by a sentence, to which separate information on methodology, originality and results is incorporated. The abstract should be reduced but explain the motivation of the study, the objectives sought, the methodology used, the results obtained, and even, subtly, the limitations. But it cannot consist of a single sentence, followed by brief allusions to the methodology and results as if they were other sections.

It is surprising how the bibliographical references have been incorporated, since they should be numbered and thus inserted in the text, to facilitate their location in the references. 
On the other hand, the objectives of the text are not clearly indicated, neither in the introduction nor in other sections, and nevertheless, recurrent references are made to the methodology. Nor are the limitations of the study apparent.
In addition, in section 3, which corresponds to the methodology, there are no outstanding references to be included, and the subsections included are very poorly developed, too summarized. It is necessary to include references in this section and to explain clearly and concisely what each of the four subsections included contribute.

The sections are incorrectly numbered, as they appear as section 5 Findings and section 5 Discussion and conclusion, and should be section 6 Discussion, which should be expanded and related to the contributions included in section 2 and section 3.
The conclusions should be in section 7, expanded and differentiated from the assessment of the results previously made. 

Author Response

Please kindly find the response in the attachment. Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

The abstract needs to be improved. Include motivation, objectives, theoretical framework, methodology and main results in a brief and concise manner. It should be coherently structured in a single paragraph.

I think that the key objective of your paper is not very clear: Researching the factors influencing the tourism business is too generic. so in the introduction, you can try to answer some points of interest. 1. An effective introduction answers three sets of questions: a. Who cares? What is the topic or research question, and why is it interesting and important in theory and practice? b. What do we know, what don't we know, and so what? What major, unaddressed puzzle, controversy, or paradox does this study address, and why does it need to be addressed? c. What will we learn? How does your study fundamentally change, challenge, or advance scholars' understanding?

At times, the article reads like a tourist brochure rather than a scientific article (Line 138 to line143). Its aim is to investigate the factors that influence the tourism business and not to inform the authorities of the potential capacity of tourism in the deser (line 71-74). We recommend to eliminate this paragraph.

After the methodology, you have incorporated a section called Study area, we suggest you include it in the introduction.

Introduction

In your introduction you do not discuss a number of important issues such as the research gap of your study, the study’s research question and objectives and the contribution of this study. These issues should be discussed thoroughly before you move to the literature review which usually includes the theoretical background, hypotheses or propositions’ building, and the study’s conceptual model.

Theoretical framework

In your study you do not try to develop a theoretical background and your study’s conceptual model is not discussed at all. You do not have a theoretical framework which to be related to help improve the ecotourism. You need to search the very good literature of develop new procedures of tourism promotion that you can find a suitable model related to your findings and then to develop and discuss the propositions of your research model.

Methodology

The methods section is not clear. More detail is required regarding all the key aspects of the methods. From where did you select the sample of 30 experts?

It is recommended to indicate the software used for the statistical analyses.

It will be necessary to justify why this methodology was selected and not others.

Conclusion: As your findings are interesting ones, you can suggest a conceptual model based on them. This conceptual model can be tested in a future research. However, you can at least discuss and develop some propositions based on the relationships of your conceptual model. This section will need to be expanded with limitations of this work and future lines of research.

Finally, it could be interesting to highlight the practical significance for organizational members of this study and make reference of policy prescriptions that derives from this analysis, as well as the implications for future research. I will encourage the authors to expand the agenda for future research.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, please kindly find the response in attachment, thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The topic of desert tourism is gaining relevance and arouses interest, both among specialized audiences and in popular sphere. Therefore, the research should be informative and presented in an understandable way for the different audiences. In view of this, I have the following recommendations for the authors:

• to specify the Abstract between lines 14 and 19 by highlighting more clearly the purpose of the study and the methodology used as appropriate to the purpose;
• in line 38 - to bring the new sentence to a new line, as well as to make the necessary connection to sustainable development and its importance for the development of tourism;
• in line 40 - to specify the citation of the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development indicating the source;
• in line 45 - to bring the new sentence to a new line, as well as to make the necessary connection between desert tourism, sustainable development and ecotourism (which is done, but much lower in the text, and here it feels like a lack);
• the sentence in line 60 - it would be good to specify the text in stylistic terms in English;
• line 62 - it is not clear what exactly is the methodology used for the first time?;
• line 62 - йwhich / which are the studies that are targeted?; it would be good to make a reference to them;
• the text between lines 91 and 94 suggests a clearer statement as to why desert tourism should be considered as ecotourism;
• the Methodology section should be clarified, starting with a clearer description of the methods used and an indication of the time period in which the study was conducted;
• in subsection 3.3, the steps of structural-interpretative modeling  should be indicated as such in the enumeration because they are currently only numbered in Arabic numerals, which is not clear enough;
• lines 203 to 207 refer to Mic Mac and cluster analysis, which are not mentioned at the moment or at least it is not clear that they are part of the methodology;
• the sources of the figures and tables should be indicated;
• the Reference list should be reviewed and, if necessary (as it seems to be found), the writing of some of the sources should be corrected, especially regarding the part that must be in italics, according to the instructions.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, please kindly find the responses in the attachment, thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

The article is relevant and works on a very interesting topic. However, its shape is a little confusing and difficult to follow. There is a lot of detail with the method used and less focus on contributions. I suggest presenting the methodology and results in a more succinct and clear way, which is easier for the reader to follow. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, please kindly find the reponses in the attachment, thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 6 Report

The topic of niche tourism on a global scale seems to be extremely interesting. Many people want extreme experiences in completely new, unknown places. One of these is the desert Feb. It is one of the hottest places on earth. As a reviewer, I had the opportunity to be in this desert, so I confirm the uniqueness of this place in terms of extreme experiences. You can practice desert trekking in this area. The applied research methods are very good, also the obtained results do not raise any objections. Indeed, the Lut desert needs advertising to make the place a destination for tourists. Iran has many other attractions, but it is also worth paying attention to the combination of cultural and natural values, especially for foreign tourists.

Author Response

Reviewer 6

The topic of niche tourism on a global scale seems to be extremely interesting. Many people want extreme experiences in completely new, unknown places. One of these is the desert Feb. It is one of the hottest places on earth. As a reviewer, I had the opportunity to be in this desert, so I confirm the uniqueness of this place in terms of extreme experiences. You can practice desert trekking in this area. The applied research methods are very good, also the obtained results do not raise any objections. Indeed, the Lut desert needs advertising to make the place a destination for tourists. Iran has many other attractions, but it is also worth paying attention to the combination of cultural and natural values, especially for foreign tourists.

Response

Thank you for your comments

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I appreciate that you addressed almost all the observations made. One minor thing remained: text on Figure 2 is too small to be understandable.

Taking in consideration the authors' effort to improve the paper, after the final observation will be addressed.

Author Response

Figure 2 was completely redesigned and shows a very high quality. Thanks for the referee's considerations

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have carried out an extensive and thorough revision of the initial text, which has significantly improved the quality of the document and made it suitable for potential publication. However, I would like to state that the period analysed seems to me to be too short, and that the methodology section could be expanded and related in a clearer and more complete way to the literature review.

Author Response

Interpretive-Structural Modeling is a systematic and structured method for the creation and understanding of relationships between elements of a complex system [43], introduced in 1974 by Warfield. ISM is a powerful qualitative tool in various fields and a suitable technique for the analysis of the impact of one element on other elements and it examines the complex relationships between the elements of a system [43]. It also aids in creating and directing complex relationships between the elements of a system [44]. In this method, the judgment of a group of people determines whether there are relationships between these elements or not. The main idea of interpretive structural modeling is to break down a complex system into several subsystems using expert knowledge to construct a multilevel structural model [45].

As mentioned earlier, the questionnaire was designed to undertake structural-interpretive modeling. This is an interactive process where a group of different yet associated elements are structured into a comprehensive systematic model. Using this system, one can evaluate the associations among different elements of a system, understand the relationships among various factors of a complicated system, and present a comprehensive model of the factors.

3.3. Steps of structural-interpretive modeling

1. Identify the factors affecting the problem.
2. Formulate the structural self-interaction matrix(SSIM).

In this matrix, some symbols are used to represent the access. These are as follows:

V: If factor I affects the emergence of factor J.

A: If factor J affects factor I.

X: If both factors affect one another (two-way effect).

O: If no association exists between the two factors.

3. Build the primary reachability matrix

By converting the symbols of the SSIM matrix to the numbers zero and one, the primary reachability matrix is obtained.

The primary reachability matrix can be built by transforming the structural self-interaction matrix into a binary matrix of 1s and 0s. For this purpose, on each row of the structural self-interaction matrix, the symbols X and V are replaced by 1s and the symbols A and O are replaced by 0s.

4. Formulate the secondary reachability matrix

In the fourth step, the primary reachability matrix must be compatibilized. The secondary reachability matrix is developed by determining multivariate associations among the factors. That is, if factor i causes factor j and factor j causes factor kit can, in turn, be concluded that factor i causes factor k. At this step, the elements on the main diagonal are set to 1, and the association and influence of each factor is determined.

5. Determine levels

In this step, sets of input factors (prerequisites) and outputs (reachability) are calculated for each factor followed by the characterization of the common factors. Here the factor for which the output set (reachability) coincides with the common set has the highest level of ISM. Once having finished with identifying such factors, the corresponding rows and columns are eliminated from the table and this step is repeated on other factors.

6. Draw the network of interactions

In this step, given the levels of different factors in the ISM and their associations, a graph of the interaction network is prepared. Level 1 represents the most affected factors while the highest level refers to the most effective ones.

Reviewer 3 Report

Many thanks to the authors for the new manuscript, which reflects the suggestions made for the improvement of the work presented.

Congratulations!!!

Kind regards

Author Response

thanks a lot 

Reviewer 5 Report

The paper was improved with the changes introduced by authors.

Author Response

thanks a lot