Identifying Rural Tourism Development Strategies for Doroodzan District: The Integration of Strategic Planning and Artificial Neural Network Techniques

Rural tourism is considered as a process in rural development that facilitates the development by providing complementary agricultural activities and increasing income. Such a process can boost employment, improve the quality of life and result in a balanced and appropriate distribution of services and facilities. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate and to analyze rural tourism development strategies for Doroodzan District of Marvdasht County. To this end, a descriptive-analytical research method with an applied-developmental approach was used. Data were gathered via field work and a predesigned questionnaire. Initially, rural tourism development strategies were identified using SWOT analysis model. Then, a Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was used to rank the strategies. The results show that the best strategies for the development of rural tourism in the area are aggressive strategy and defensive strategy, with scores of 0.2772 and 0.2598, respectively. Furthermore, based on the ANN, it was revealed that official efforts to develop plans to expand rural tourism and to create jobs is ranked as the first priority.