Second- Home Tourism and Socio-Cultural Development, with an Emphasis on Social Exchange Theory (Case Study: Rural District of Dohezar, Tonekabon Township)

Second-home tourism has been formed with different motivations and is one of the types of tourism which has been mostly flourished in the rural spaces. The aim of current study is to analyze the sociocultural dimensions of the development of this type of tourism in the rural district of Dohezar, Tonekabon Township. Methodology of the research is descriptive-analytic with an emphasis on field survey. Required data for the research are objective and subjective which have been collected using questionnaires and after being coded have been processed using SPSS software. Findings of the research have been categorized in two parts, descriptive and analytic. In descriptive findings, the distribution test and in analytic findings based on the nature, aim ad type of the variables, correlation test, analytical regression have been used, and to understand the difference between the two situations before and after the development of tourism, difference tests have been used. Results show that second-home tourism in the studied area has had positive influence on participation and responsibility components, on the contrary it has resulted in the decrease of social trust and an increase in the social abnormalities and there is a significant difference between the socio-cultural indexes before and after the development of second-home tourism. But it can finally be stated that second-home tourism has resulted in socio-cultural development.