The Evaluating of Geo-tourism Capabilities of Existing Geosites in the Kandovan Village

Abstract Geo-tourism is geographical tourism that relies on geology and geomorphology characteristics implicitly as a context for human activities and geographical specifications. So Geo-tourism mission compared to other sustainable tourisms is to preserve geographical characters of a place. Geo-tourism involves different aspects of experience of travel instead of emphasize on one special aspect of traveling experiences like environment, culture and etc. Thus in addition to introduction of accurate capabilities of a geomorphologic place for attraction of tourists, Geo-tourism tries to increase tourist knowledge and it leads to accompaniment by local individuals in process of visiting geomorphologic places that the satisfaction of tourist is necessary .In other hand, the journey should be useful in improvement of local people life and finally it should be employed in best manner without any damages. The purpose of Geo-tourism should be manifested in sustainability of total region and preservation of geographical characteristics of the visited place and it should lead to empowerment and increase of geomorphologic areas that involves environment, cultural heritage and welfare of the residents providing context for sustainable development of touristic area. By this approach, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate a number of existing Geo sites of Kandovan village, by using the scientific and value added models. Kandovan is located in 62 km South West of Tabriz in Osku county. Kandovan is one of three rocky villages in the world which still there is life in there. Despite its geo tourism potential, and being located in the western slopes of Sahand Mountain, Kandovan posses archeological resources, the climatic and geomorphologic phenomena. But still it does not have a right position inside and outside of the country. Concerning to the goals of this paper, the data were collected by library resources and field operations and they were analyzed by scientific value and value-added methods. Ecologic and aesthetic aspects, cultural and economic value and scientific value of the studied geo sites have been investigated quantitatively in this research. The results show that the scientific value of the existing geo sites is higher than their value added. It is indicated a lack of directed investment in establishing infrastructure, introduction of the geo tourism phenomena and inattention of domestic agencies for organizing tours. It was identified that rocky homes in terms of value added and scientific value have higher priorities than any other existing geo sites by aesthetic aspect and attractiveness of these houses.