فرحناز خادم فسقندیس

Among the various factors that can affect the urban sustainable development, are tourism and the consequences of it. So that a comprehensive review of the impact of tourism development in an urban area, requires to examine it in terms of sustainable urban development. In this regard, the paper aims to identify and analyze the obstacles to the sustainable development of tourism in the coastal city of Tonekabon. The method of this study is descriptive-analytical and data collection was carried out by a questionnaire. Using Cochran formula, samples are obtained from 323 household caregivers in Tonekabon, who were selected randomly. In order to assess the obstacles to the sustainable development of tourism in the coastal city of Tonekabon, using the factor analysis, 38 variables in four dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social, environmental and physical) were tested. Finally, constraints were classified into seven factors separately, the results show: Stability obstacles accounted to 74.75% of the total variance and the physical-environmental dimension accounted to 16.12% of eigenvalue variance to be known as the main obstacle. Also, the results for rotation of the factors by the Varimax method show that out of the 38 variables entered in the exploratory factor analysis, only 25 variables with a factor load above 4% remained.