Tourism and Patrimony in the Old Damascus, “Problems and Future Prospects”

Abstract

This paper aimed at opening discussions concerning new strategy of integrating tourist planning based on improving the various competitive skills of the Old Damascus that are the valley, mountain, and the marine space, to reach a sustainable tourist industry which will be a basic foundation for the economic sector. A step-by-step approach in parallel with SWOT matrix is applied to analysis the information collected. The direct interviews with regional decision makers and managers of the public sector related to the tourism and regional development were basic sources of data. The paper proposes an innovative scenario “” for spatial tourism planning “STP”, to achieve an urban-rural integrated tourism planning as a non-partial unit. Besides, the tourist investment corridor.” Hence, this suggested scenario is considered as one of the future directive bottom-up model approachable to upgrade into multi-gateways tourist ring in the post-war stage; as one of the international tourist. Therefore, the scenario is one of the policies which is entitled as “Tourism for Peace” to convey knowledge and culture between nations.