The role of pomegranate festival in the sustainable development of tourism in local communities in border areas.case study: (Villages of Oramanat region of Paveh city)

Villages and towns are increasingly willing to share their culture and nature with tourists through the development of events. Festivals and events are one of the most important forms of tourism that play a very important role in the sustainable development of tourism in local communities. The present article examines the impact of the Pomegranate Festival on the development of sustainable tourism in local communities. The method of this research is descriptive-survey. To collect data and information, both library and field methods and through the distribution of questionnaires, between a statistical sample of 384 people, including villages participating in the festival and tour operators and travelers. It was done by random sampling method available in proportion to the size of the population and based on Morgan's table, and 5 experts were targeted by the sampling method. Their validity was confirmed by the opinions of tourism experts and the reliability of the instruments was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha test. SPSS20 and SmartPLS3 statistical software were also used to process the data. The results of the T-sample test showed that the Pomegranate Festival could be a tool for the development of tourism in local communities in the Oramanat region. Also, the results of structural equations show that the socio-cultural index with the highest impact with coefficient (0.704) in sustainable tourism development of local communities, economic index in the second place with coefficient (0.283) environmental index in the third place with coefficient Effectiveness (0.017) is effective.