Identifying the effective structures on the role of food tourism in the sustainable development of rural settlements in Mazandaran province

The development of tourism in rural areas is an essential element and one of the ways to save villages from poverty, migration and social and economic problems. With the decline of traditional industries as sources of income for rural communities, these communities should find alternative means to strengthen economic resources for the development of their communities. Currently, among the types of rural tourism, food tourism has become very important. The author's problem is to identify the set of factors and structures affecting the role of food tourism in the sustainable development of rural settlements in Mazandaran province. The main goal of this research is to identify the structures and determine the relationships between the components of food tourism and the sustainable development of rural settlements in Mazandaran province. The method of collecting information is in the form of library studies. The data of this research were classified into two parts, qualitative and quantitative. Data collection tools are interviews and questionnaires. The community investigated in this research, experts include managers and senior experts of the General Department of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism of Mazandaran Province. In order to create a model of the role of food tourism on the sustainable development of rural settlements in Mazandaran province, the interpretive-structural modeling method was used, the structures of which were identified through qualitative methods and content analysis methods. In the following, using MICMAC software, the degree of influence and effectiveness of the variables on each other has been determined. The results of the research show that at the tenth level of the model, the "government support" structure is placed, which is the foundation of the model, and the sustainable development of villages starts from this policy and spreads to other structures. Finally, in the first level of the model, there is the "social structure" structure, which is the result of the relationships between the structures of our previous levels and results in the sustainable development of the village.