Analysis of the Communications Capacity of the Responsible Organizations for Coastal Tourism Destinations Case Study: Rural Destinations of Guilan Province

Introduction

The origins of tourism in coastal areas go back to Roman times, when the first villas were constructed in the Southern part of the Apennine peninsula. In the centuries that followed, especially from the mid-18th century onwards, coastal tourism was generally related to the therapeutic properties of sea and sun. Sun, sea and sand have continued to provide the main ingredients for coastal tourism until today, especially in the second half of the 20th century, which was marked by the development of mass tourism (UNEP, 2009: 10). Coastal tourism is the sum of activities relating to the travel and stay over by people visiting the coastal zone. Tourist activities are considered coastal tourism activities when they are based on or utilize coastal or marine resources, either natural or manmade, or located within the coastal strip (TCMP, 2001:5).

Tourism represents a cross-sectional occurrence, involving a wide range of involved parties (stakeholders) from almost every domain who have different and often contradictory interests and agendas. The decisions about tourism development should be balanced between the national and the local needs, the private sector and the state, the local communities, the communities of citizens, between the tourists and the mass media etc (Risteski et al, 2012: 376).

Capacity is defined as the organizational and technical abilities, relationships and values that enable countries, organizations, groups, and individuals at any level of society to carry out functions and achieve their development objectives over time. Capacity refers not only to skills and knowledge but also to relationships, values and attitudes, and many others (emphasis added) (adapted from Morgan, 1998). Capacity has to do with collective ability, i.e. that combination of attributes that enables a system to perform, deliver value, establish relationships and to renew itself. Or put another way, the abilities that allow systems - individuals, groups, organizations, groups of organizations - to be able to do something with some sort of intention and with some sort of effectiveness and at some sort of scale over time. A focus on abilities or as we call them in this paper - capabilities - can help provide more operational and specific ways to deal with the broader concept of capacity (Morgan, 2006: 6).

Gilan Province has about 300 km of beautiful coasts. Although the coasts of Guilan have beautiful perspectives and many tourists every year, but coastal tourism of Guilan has different problems in development process. Rural coastal tourism destinations have several problems such as; financial difficulties, lack of infrastructure and facilities, lack of lifeguards and also environmental problems. The aim of this study is Analysis of the communications capacity of the responsible organizations for coastal tourism destinations.





Methodology

Communications in this study in terms of communication intra-organizational, inter­-organizational, private investors, NGOs, tourists and villagers is measured through questionnaires. One-sample t-test and ANOVA are used to analyze the data. The sample size is 22 people, including managers and experts of responsible organizations of coastal tourism destinations. The studied area is Guilan province. Its area is about 0.9 percent of the country's total area. Guilan province shares borders with Ardabil on the west, Mazandaran on the east, Zanjan on the south and the Caspian Sea.



Results and discussion

There is a significant difference between the mean dimensions of communication capacity based on the coefficient F, which is 23.662 and its significance level (sig) is 0.000. Based on the results of the Tukey test, communications capacity is divided into three homogeneous subgroups. The first group consists of communication with NGOs, villagers and private sector investors, and their significance level is more than 0.05. The second group consists of inter-organizational communication and communication with the tourists, and in the third group, there is an intra-organizational communication, indicating that the average of intra-organizational communication is higher than other communications.

The highest mean of communication is related to Gisom with (1.72) and the lowest mean is related to Darogarmahale whit (1.32). The mean of communications capacity of the responsible organizations is equal to (1. 51), which indicates communications capacity in organizations is low.



Conclusions

If sustainable development is viewed to be a process rather than a goal, with a need for inter-organizational cooperation, it becomes critical to deal with the challenges presented by the need to integrate policy making and implementation. The concept of integration in the context of policy development and implementation refers to its operational integration within and between organizations, between various professions and interest groups, and with other stakeholders (Heslop, 2010: 6). It is commonly accepted that no one organization can be responsible for progressing sustainable development. Sustainable development requires, amongst other things, the capacity for collective action (Healey et al., 2002) as the impacts cross disciplinary, organizational, sectorial, geographical and even country boundaries (Lafferty, 2004).

The results of this study indicate low communication capacity in the responsible organizations and the result is low development of coastal tourism destinations in Guilan province. In this regard, the organization needs communication to progressing organizational goals and success to achieve their. Because there are various organizations involved in the development of coastal tourism, if there is a communication capacity, these organizations can work for the coastal tourism development with each other also with other stakeholders, including tourists, private sector investors, the private sector and local communities, in order to better development of these destinations.