Recognition and Analysis of Network Relations in Rural Tourism Through Grand Theory: A Case Study on Mountainous Valley Route of Haraz, Iran

One of the strategies to develop rural regions in most countries is to promote rural tourism. One of the features of rural tourism is its fragmented physical nature; therefore, in recent years, the rural tourism networks are of great concern in this regard. In most countries, the importance of rural tourism networks concept is rising. In the economy of many countries, this concept works better in tourism than other sectors. An analytic approach on rural tourism networks and its application in the development of tourism is essential. One of the most important contributions of tourism is flourishing related and marginal businesses. In the current study and based on ground theory, we attempted to analyze rural tourism networks in mountainous-valley route of Haraz rural areas.

In-depth interviews and group discussions were conducted to collect data. The statistical population consisted of the tourism and related businesses and the samples were selected through the snowball effect sampling method among 216 local businesses. About 35.5 hours were spent to conduct interviews with 40 tourism businesses.

The most important network cooperation is found among the borrowing, manpower, information, consulting, revising, and trade.

In general, the obtained results indicated that regarding business network cooperation, the conditions were not in good condition.