Performance Evaluation of Elements of Rural Tourism Entrepreneurship Ecosystem; Case Study: Tehran Province

Abstract

Entrepreneurship in rural tourism is one of the pillars of rural development that has always been considered as a solution to some of the problems of the villagers. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the tourism entrepreneurship ecosystem in the villages of Tehran province and identify the most important factors affecting its development. This is an exploratory study conducted using descriptive-analytical method and the main tool for collecting data is a questionnaire completed by "Rural Business Owners", "Rural Managers" and "Elites and Specialists". Regarding the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in rural tourism, the results showed that all three groups of business owners, rural managers and experts consider the economic dimension as the most important dimension and the results of the factor analysis model in evaluating the most important indicators affecting the development of entrepreneurship ecosystem in rural tourism by summarizing 24 indicators to 5 factors showed that the most important indicator in the development of entrepreneurship ecosystem in rural tourism is the "investment" index. Other indicators of the first factor include participation, investor, access (market or economic), government, awareness and education (policy). Accordingly, it can be concluded that the most important requirement for the development of tourism entrepreneurship in the villages under study is cooperation between two groups of investors (for investment and marketing) and the government (to provide education and awareness) in the villages with tourism entrepreneurship and partnership with the residents of these villages.

Keywords

• entrepreneurship ecosystem
• rural tourism
• tourism entrepreneurship
• tehran province villages