The beliefs of rural community about the effects of rural tourism development (Case study: Fash village, Kangavar County)

Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. In both developed and developing countries, tourism is supposed to be a viable means of raising the economic activity of rural areas. The main aim of this study was to investigate the beliefs of rural community about the effects of rural tourism development in Fash village, Kangavar County. The population of this study was, the rural people in the Fash village (1925 villagers) that 225 of them were selected through systematic random sampling. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire which its face validity was confirmed by a panel of experts, and the pilot test was conducted to assess the reliability. The results of factor analysis showed that the impacts of rural tourism development effects were categorized in three different factors: cultural, economic and environmental. These three factors explained 55.3 percent of the total variance of rural tourism development effects. Also, means of rural community belief to social and economic effects of rural tourism development have been significantly more than the optimum mean. One negative effect of rural tourism was some that tourists damage the environment. Rural people can solve this problem by creating teams as environmental supervisor or tourism supervisor. This action makes rural people have active participation on environmental conservation and management.