evaluating the environmental health conditions of restaurants and hotels dining areas in a central tourist area in isfahan by using gis in 2008 and 2009

background: the food hygiene and its distribution places are very important. tourists go to the places that provide them with enough assurance, trust and security. in this situation, providing proper services and appliances like food distributing places with appropriate environmental health condition is effective in attracting their interest. the objective of this research is evaluating the environmental hygiene of the restaurants and hotels dining areas in the central tourist area of isfahan city that attracts many tourists every year.   methods: this research was descriptive and the non- probable purposive sampling method was used. the environmental health inspection reports of the restaurants and hotels dining areas covered by khajoo and 16 malek health and treatment centres during 2008 and 2009, were collected and summarized, then was descriptively analyzed by spss 15 and excel software 2007.pictures of isfahan were produced using google earth and corel draw software, and then were analyzed by arcview 2.0 software according to the environmental health information. findings: the research area covers 26 units, which 17 of (65 %) are covered by 16 malek and 9 (35 %) by khajoo. 65 % of the units are restaurant and 35% hotels dining areas. average visit number to each unit in the whole area, 16 malek and khajoo in two years were 11.41, 12.07 and 10.25 visits respectively, this number for the year 1 and 2 was 6 & 5.32 and for the restaurants and hotels were equal to 11.77 and 10.89 respectively. conclusion: environmental health status of year 2oo7, in khajoo area and in hotels was better than that in year 2008, in 16 malek area and the restaurants respectively. the environmental health condition in 2 units (9 %) were in level 1 (excellent), 10 units (45 %) in level 2 (good), 8 units in level 3 (moderate) and 2 units in level 4 (poor).