Analyzing of the Impact of Tourism on sustainable livelihoods of rural residents (Case Study: Uraman Village of Sarvabad city)

Regarding the close relationship between poverty and vulnerability, villages that are impoverished have vulnerabilities and critical situations in terms of access to and maintenance of various types of capital. Several decades of activity based on different approaches, such as the Green Revolution, Industrialization of villages and integrated rural development, failed to solve the rural poverty issue and many of the problems caused by rural poverty remained unresolved. Therefore, a new approach that emphasized on the poor and vulnerable rural populations was needed in the field of rural development theory in order to re-establish vitality in the villages. Today, there is a huge emphasis on the elimination of poverty as one of the main obstacles to the realization of rural system sustainability. This is despite the fact that the sustainable livelihoods approach, the main emphasis to sustainable rural livelihoods and poverty alleviation is diversifying the rural economy with an emphasis on non-agricultural activities. In this regard, today, due to the widespread acceptance and potential of rural tourism development in rural areas has been proposed as a way to make and supplements to sustainable rural livelihoods. The present study was to evaluate the role of tourism in sustainable rural livelihoods of Uraman tourism target villages before the tourism development has been done due to geographical isolation and lack of infrastructure development and low level of quality of life. The research method is analytical, based on quantitative-qualitative approach. Documentary resources and field data collection, based on interviews and questionnaires distributed among 250 random households of Uraman villages which by Cochran formula of 1110 households were set volume. The results of the data analysis by descriptive statistics (mean) and inferential statistics (t single sample, t test, Wilcoxon, chi-square, Friedman) shows the positive impact of tourism as an important strategy in improving the livelihoods and security sustainable livelihoods of Uraman villages.