Journal of Research and Rural Planning
Volume:9 Issue: 2, Spring 2020

 This study aims to demonstrate the factors affecting the current development pattern of second homes, emphasizing on the role of spatial planning in the forest villages that are considered as the tourism destinations of Mazandaran province.

 This is a descriptive-analytical study carried out in nine villages of nine county of Mazandaran as tourism destinations. The statistical population consisted of 18 rural managers and 1980 rural households in the under-study villages.

 The ANOVA results showed that the institutional-political factor of social-cultural dimension, with the mean of 3.7133 had the highest effect on the current development pattern of second homes.

 As the statistical population of the present study consisted of rural managers, it was difficult to have access to the managers since they were involved in agricultural works.

 Based on the current pattern of second home development, the distribution pattern of the spatial planning of second homes was designed. In order to sustain second home development, the negative points in each step of the input, activity, short-term, and long-term consequences should be reduced or eliminated.

Since second home tourism is one of the different types of rural tourism that plays a main role in the development of rural areas, and considering the importance of second home tourism in the development of rural areas and their impact on the villagers' life, it is necessary to clarify the factors affecting second home development.  Therefore, this study aims to improve the proper distribution of spatial planning in second homes by providing a spatial planning pattern for second home development.

 This survey research was conducted with the aim of assessing the rural residents' support for tourism development and their effective factors in the tourism target villages in the Central District of Firoozabad County.

The statistical population of this study was resident household heads. Using Bartlett Table, 155 households were studied by simple random sampling method. The data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire which its validity and reliability were confirmed.

 Based on the findings, the residents were categorized into two groups of committed supporters and passive supporters according to their support for tourism. The results of the logistic regression model showed that the perception of social, economic and environmental impacts is directly (positively) significantly predictive of the residents' support for tourism development. The highest coefficient of the logistic regression model was related to the perception of social impacts (with a coefficient of 10.661) as compared to the economic impacts (with a coefficient of 8.659) and the environmental (with a coefficient of 7.683). In addition, in 95.5% of the cases, the function can correctly measure levels of support for rural tourism. The accuracy of the model was also confirmed through the ROC curve.

Difficulties in completing the questionnaires due to the number of the tourist arrivals and people's occupations, the reluctance of some households to respond because of the distrust resulting from the location of the village in the palace privacy, and the problems encountered in this regard, which were resolved by the researchers' frequent visits to the area and acquiring the villagers' trust.

 In addition to improving the resident's perceptions of environmental impacts, further attention must be paid to improving the residents' perceptions of economic and social impacts.

 The development of tourism industry is heavily dependent on the participation and support of local residents. Improving the residents' perceptions of the impacts of tourism will lead to more residents' support for the industry, thereby, be paid more by tourists in the area, and recommend destinations to others and their desire to return to the area.

 Food security (FS) is defined as sustainable access to safe and nutritious food for a healthy and active life. The present study was designed to investigate and determine FS status of rural households and the relevant influential factors. It was conducted on 432 rural households in six subdistricts of two districts of Sarpolzahab, West of Iran, in 2016.

 The samples were selected using random cluster sampling, and FS status was assessed using United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) household FS questionnaire. Therefore, both socio-economic questionnaire and the household FS questionnaire were completed during a face to face interview. Data were analyzed using the statistical software package SPSS-22. Chi-square, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and forward multiple logistic regression were used for data analysis.

 Prevalence of food insecurity (FI) in all of the surveyed households was 65.3%, and household FS status between the subdistricts had a significant difference (P< 0.01). The results of the study showed that the prevalence of FI in the subdistricts of Posht-Tang and Sarab (83.3% and 76.4%, respectively) was higher than other subdistricts. Number of household’s members, land ownership, education of household’s head, activity status, and household’s income had significantly relationship with household FI (P< 0.01).

The high prevalence of FI is a major threat to the abnormal utilization of environmental resources in this realm. Therefore, given the impact of horticultural activities and diverse cultivation on household FS, macro and regional policies should be provided to increase the diversity of products through agroforestry and intercropping.

This research presents the basic information on the FS status of rural households in Sarpolzahab and some related socio-economic factors the results of which can help planners and managers to implement interventions to improve the FS and welfare of rural households.

Niche tourism refers to how to use a particular tourism product tailored to the needs of a particular segment of the market. Places with niche tourism products are able to achieve a high position and consolidate their future position in the tourism market. This type of tourism helps distinguish tourism products by creating an image of the destination and helping compete in the increasingly crowded environment of the tourism market. This paper investigates and analyzes the niche tourism attractions in Ghaleh Rudkhan tourist destination village using activity-based segmentation, the attitudes of the host community in dealing with niche tourism development, and the ability to implement tourism projects and socio-economic factors influencing tourism development in the region, which eventually offers solutions to overcome the current and potential challenges in the study area. To collect the data, interview-based methods, focus group interviews, individual observations and analysis of the documents obtained from different sources were used.

A questionnaire was designed and distributed among 383 tourists and 190 rural employees. The data of this study were mainly evaluated using thematic and content analysis methods. Besides, we have also introduced the niche tourism potentials and tourism activities in the region.

The results show that thanks to the economic and social opportunities, local communities support tourism development in Ghaleh Rudkhan; however, the challenges associated with tourism marketing, event management, uncertainty of private sector investors and environmental issues must be addressed through a participatory approach.

Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) being regarded as the clear representation of the participation of people, pave the way for fulfilling the objectives of sustainable development. The main goal of this study is to investigate the circumstances and consequences of local NGOs in empowering rural women in protecting the environment of Roshtkhar County (One of the southern Counties of Khorasan Razavi province).

The data needed for this study have been obtained through semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of the founding boards and active members of NGOs (n =27).

The results of the current study that utilized the conventional coding process indicating that in the villages studied, NGOs protect and improve the environmental performance and lead to the economic empowerment of the rural women.

 Similar to other rural research, this research has encountered some general problems that have plagued other rural research in the country. Statistical problems and lack of cooperation and justification of Governmental organizations

As the results of most studies show, despite some difficulties and difficulties for the growth and development of such institutions in the country, most of them have an important role in women's empowerment. Although very little research has been done in the country, no research has been done in the study area.

 The formation of various economic activities has always been accompanied by changes in this geographical space. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the local-spatial consequences of the development of tourism economy with an entrepreneurial approach in rural areas of Samen District in Malayer County.

This study is an applied one. According to the method, it is descriptive-analytical. To fulfill the purpose of the study, field study and survey were used. Its reliability was calculated using Cronbach's alpha test for 4 components of economic, social, physical, and environmental consequences with the values of 0.90, 0.90, 0.99 and 0.97, respectively. Thus, the research tool was considered appropriate. Factor analysis was used to analyze the data using SPSS (version 20).

The results showed that the local-spatial consequences of the development of tourism economy with an entrepreneurial approach can be considered in six classified factors under the following headings: Development of physical and environmental capital (40.54%), development of rural tourism service platforms (22.98%), social and improving capital of local communities (11.84%), development of economic capital and employment of local communities (7.49%) , expansion of tourism economy development infrastructure (3.37%), and the entrepreneurial capital factor and the development of local communities (2.54%). These six consequences explain the variance of all variables for the total of 88.76%

 More than half of entrepreneurs neither use a specific marketing and tourism strategy to sell their products, nor have a website. Lack of access to infrastructure such as the internet and accommodation opportunity has created limitations for the development of the tourism entrepreneurial economy in the rural areas of Malayer.

 In order to achieve the development of tourism entrepreneurship in rural areas, it is recommended to pay special attention to the development of rural environmental capital, security and development of infrastructure and basic services, and development of social and improving capital of local communities in the region. Since most of the tourists entering Malayer have commercial purposes, the development of rural services such as the travel agencies and active tours in the village, the presence of internet cafes for tourists in the village, automobile repair shops, insurance offices, local restaurants and ecolodges seem to be essential.

To understand the dynamics and consequences of the development of tourism economy, the entrepreneurial approach was used in the form of Porter’s tourism impact model. It led to the measurement of local-spatial consequences in this area.

 The purpose of this study is to present a framework for studying the consequences of rural tourism entrepreneurship development.

The type of study is applied Research and descriptive-exploratory in essence. Data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire and the validity of the questionnaire items was confirmed by experts and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha (.876). Based on statistical population of experts, local managers and owners of tourism complexes in the villages of Darram and Chavarzgh counties that were selected through purposive non-probability sampling method, 277 households were selected from the owners of tourism complexes and practitioners related to tourism activity. The field-library data collection and data analysis were performed using SPSS software and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using AMOS software. The relevance of the four factors affecting the outcomes of rural tourism entrepreneurship development is discussed.

The results show that the extent of the impact of independent variables of entrepreneurship on tourism development outcomes in the study area, respectively, are the indicators of the opportunities created by the growth and development of entrepreneurship with 0.98 as the first rank and the most influential, socio-economic value creation index of entrepreneurship with 0.87, which is ranked second, innovation and creativity index is ranked third with 0.43 and finally, environmental entrepreneurship index of tourism entrepreneurship is 0.38 and is ranked fourth.

The formulation framework for evaluating the implications of tourism entrepreneurship development presented in this study has a meaningful and acceptable explanation in the study area.