Function of Religious Tourism in Social Development of Rural Areas in Southern Khorasan Province

Today, rural development faces many issues and challenges, because past strategies in rural development were not successful. Therefore in recent years, theory makers and policymakers proposed tourism development as a proper strategy to reduce problems faced rural areas. One approach which is most considered in the world is developing tourism in rural areas. Religious tourism is a kind of tourism that can have an effective role in developing rural areas. Proper planning for tourism development and identifying advantages and limitations of this development can be effective in developing of regional and national zones and also growing of economic diversity. There are some number of Shrines, holy Tombs and religious centers which have a very high capacity in Southern Khorasan province. Therefore by implementing correct policies and creating tourism infrastructure we can see religious and pilgrimage tourism development that could be caused rural development. So the main objective of this research is investigating the importance of religious tourism and increases its benefits in social development (employment, decreasing migration, and increasing welfare services and amenities) of rural areas. The method of this research is practical and descriptive – analytic. Data collection from 360 persons in target villages was done by considering the rural population in each area. Then we test correlation between three factors that cause social development in rural areas, and tourism by Pearson's correlation coefficient method. Findings show that although there is a correlation between tourism and rural development but correlations between the three factors and tourism are not significant.