Examining the challenges and hindrances in development of tourism in rural areas with an emphasis on HydrotherapyCase Study: villages of Larijan District, Amol County

In case of proper planning of tourism, it plays a major role in empowering local areas, especially in coastal villages. Based on this, the main objective of this study is to investigate the strengths and weaknesses as well as to identify the opportunities and threats facing the development of tourism and providing solutions for the development of mountain villages in the north of Iran. This research is in form of applied research and the method is descriptive, analytical and field study and Statistical population is the mountain villages of Larijan district in Amol County. After identification and design of indicators, a questionnaire has been set, by using the Cochran formula, two hundred people from villagers, tourists and authorities of the tourism sector has been chosen as sample and asked to answer the questions. Finally by using descriptive statistics and factor analysis in SPSS, data has been tested and analyzed. Results of the factor analysis shows that various factors has been detected as weak points and challenges into four categories (factors) and in overall have been within the scope of this research. Meantime, the infrastructure challenges with a specific amount of 6.21 and 25.18 percent of the specific variance value are considered as the most important challenges, and after that, the health and environmental challenges with 17.38 percent of the specific variance value are the second factors. In addition to the mentioned factors, the economic challenges with 15.19 percent of the variance and social and cultural challenges with 13.06 percent of the specific variance are in the next ranks. Based on this, it can be concluded that according to experts and villagers, the studied components are totally 70.81 percent of the variance of all obstacles of tourism development in mountain villages and about 29.19 percent of the remainder are related to the factors that are not investigated in this study. Keywords: Tourism, ecotourism, rural development, Hydrotherapy, Larijan District.