Assessment and priority Natural Waterfalls to Ecotourism Development (A case study of seven waterfalls in the Lorestan province)

The aim of this research not only is prioritization of waterfalls of Lorestan province to investment but also, is selection one of them in order to introduce as a tourism sample area.Methodology. The statistical society was composed of seven main waterfalls of mentioned province and the community of tourism experts. The study method was an analytical-descriptive and practical method.Since, the specified index has not been offered to prioritization attractions from the organization in order to select sample areas so, some criteria and sub-criteria have been selected on the advice of tourism experts. Since, desired criteria had different values and validities in prioritization, so AHP method was the best method which in the importance of each criterion composed of quantitative and qualitative criteria was considered. So, prioritization has been done by using this method. The results showed that, Bisheh waterfall in the city of Dorood with the value of 0.194 has the best situation for investment and also has sufficient potential in order to introduce as a tourism sample area. This was followed by the Nojian waterfall with the height of more than 90 meters and acquired value of 0.147 which has the proper situation for investment.
From most important short-term suggestions can be developed of access routes to waterfalls and increase of variety of services noted.