Developing An Environmental Management Program Model In Rural Tourism Of Khorasan Razavi Province Based On Sustainable Development

Abstract

Providing a strategic planning and management framework and strategic recommendations can enable tourism destinations and communities, especially rural tourism, to introduce critical success factors and major environmental influencing forces in the tourism planning process in a coherent, coordinated, and balanced manner. Some countries and private sectors do not have sufficient experience in developing the rural tourism industry. Therefore, planning can provide the necessary solutions for their development. Appropriate strategic planning can meet the basic goals of sustainable rural development and contribute significantly to economic growth and improving the quality of life of residents of tourist areas, and ultimately achieving national development. In the present study, two categories of fundamental and applied research were conducted, which is applied in terms of research objective and descriptive and survey-type research in terms of data collection, which was considered logical. Two library and field methods were used to collect information. In addition, a sample was selected from tourism experts and experts and from the indigenous residents of the host community. A total of 59 villages were identified as having tourism capacity and potential in terms of cultural heritage, considering that the population of the villages under study is approximately 838,981 males and 843,424 females, totaling 1,682,405 people. A total of 384 people were selected as a sample using the Cochran formula, and considering this number, the sampling method used was a cluster. In this method, the study area (Khorasan Razavi Province) was divided into clusters of north, south, east, west, and center, and 2 areas were selected as samples from each cluster, and the research tool was randomly implemented in those locations. In the reliability of the questionnaire, the external model reliability test was used at the applied level with four indices: Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability or Delvin-Goldstein P, RHO_A reliability or Spearman's internal correlation, and shared reliability. The validity of the questionnaire content was confirmed by expert professors in this field. All proposed hypotheses were confirmed and statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 19 software and the structural model method with PLS software, and finally, the strategic planning model for rural tourism management in Khorasan Razavi province based on sustainable development was developed.