Designing a strategic resilience model for ecotourism businesses in Border areas

Ecotourism is one of the sub-sectors of the tourism industry that has created many attractions in the use of space and features of the rural environment for tourists. Ecotourism has always been considered with various functions in promoting economic, socio-cultural and environmental indicators of the host region. Entrepreneurs need to identify the risks of the industry and improve their resilience in order to survive and thrive in complex economic conditions. The purpose of this study is to design a strategic resilience model for ecotourism businesses in border areas, which was done using the grounded theory method. The statistical population consisted of 18 key experts and informants who were purposefully selected. Data collection was performed using in-depth interviews and the extracted concepts were analyzed in three steps of open, axial and selective coding,. The results include entrepreneurial awareness, discovering and creating ecotourism opportunities, entrepreneurial mindset, strategic vision, creative and innovative atmosphere and social exchanges of the local community with strategies such as creating virtual networks to introduce ecotourism businesses, improve skills, branding, rebuild the business model and create a competitive advantage can be the sustainability, resilience and flexibility of ecotourism businesses, development of social activities, sustainable security in border areas