Qualitative Analysis of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Elements of the Hospitality and Tourism Industry (Case study: Bandar Anzali city)

The role of hospitality industry and its link to social - economic development shows that entrepreneurial development in hospitality can be one of the tools of policymakers to achieve economic growth in tourism destinations. Thus, since there are factors and forces on the broader level that influence the development of innovative businesses in the hospitality industry, this industry must be studied from an ecosystem perspective to study the role of these actors in the development of hospitality entrepreneurship. The Thematic analysis was used to analyze data and the data were collected using interviews with 40 experts in hospitality and tourism. The sampling method was purposeful and the theoretical saturation rule was used to determine the sample size. A qualitative coding technique was used to analyze the data. This study identified 14 main elements and 59 sub-elements for the hospitality and tourism entrepreneurial ecosystem which the main elements included "policy", "local culture", "‌variety of capabilities", "training", "human resource", "networking", "knowledge and innovation", "competitive advantage", "institutional capacity", "destination management", "brand management", "rules and regulations", "‌Investment intelligence and financing" and "target market". Moreover, the three-level model of the Hospitality and tourism entrepreneurial ecosystem is presented. Since ecosystems are spontaneously formed in a social-cultural context and the existence of a network of interactions and collaboration among the various elements in the environment, the strengthening of each of these elements will provide an incentive for the development of hospitality and tourism and encourage all stakeholders involved in this area to develop innovative businesses.