Understanding Tourists' Satisfaction and Motivation Regarding Mining Geotours (Case Study: Isfahan, Iran)

Mining tourism is an integrated niche tourism bonding with geotourism and industrial and cultural tourism. Nowadays, mines are known as tourism destinations and mining tourism plays an important role in attracting tourists to remote areas which contain mines. This research has three major purposes: (1) to assess the motivation of domestic tourists for participating in geo-mining tours; (2) to examine the priority of tourists towards geotourism activities; and (3) to investigate the satisfaction of tourists towards organised geo-mining tours to the Nakhlak and Muteh mines. A quantitative method was used and the data was analysed using SPSS tools. On the basis of the results of this study, it can be concluded that tourists like to discover new destinations and that staying in geo-accommodation, visiting underground and surface mining works and participating in geo-sports are their priorities for geotours. The results also reveal a high level of satisfaction with geo-mining tours to the Nakhlak and Muteh mines.