جغرافیا و برنامهریزی محیطی (Jun 2022)
Barriers and Facilitators of Agri-Tourism Sustainable Development in West of Mazandaran Province
Abstract
AbstractAgritourism can promote socio-cultural values in rural areas by creating new job opportunities, helping to preserve the environment, and reversing rural-urban migration flows. However, studies have shown that this type of tourism in Iran has not yet become acceptable for development. The aim of this research was to identify the barriers to and facilitators of sustainable development of agro-tourism in the west of Mazandaran Province based on an exploratory sequential mixed (qualitative-quantitative) method. First, 21 experts in the field of agritourism were purposefully selected from the quality departments of various organizations through semi-structured interviews. After collecting the necessary information, 120 indicators were extracted by using Conventional Content Analysis (CCA), which were then categorized in 8 socio-cultural, physical-physical, political-legal, management, intellectual infrastructure, communication-advertising, participatory, and marketing dimensions. The statistical population in the quantitative section included 69 rural residents in the western villages of Mazandaran Province, who were selected via a multi-stage method. To analyze the data, force field analysis was done by using SPSSwin20 and Pathmakerver5.5 software. The results showed that the outcomes of the deterrent forces of all the 8 factors were higher than those of the promoters, which revealed infeasibility of the sustainable development of agritourism. For each factor, the strongest facilitator and obstacle were identified and introduced. In conclusion, it should be said that it is necessary to facilitate agritourism development by strengthening the driving forces and removing obstacles to reach the equilibrium point and ultimately sustainability. Extended abstractIntroduction: Agritourism is an activity to attract tourists to an area in order to diversify agricultural activities and receive tourists on farms. Most countries of the world have considered this type of tourism as a new strategy for socio-economic development, revitalization, and reconstruction of rural areas. Agricultural tourism is a value-added product that introduces additional revenues from production lands and farm brands to customers. This is an opportunity to create a loyal consumer basis for all agricultural products. This type of tourism can provide farmers with economic incentives so as to maintain their agricultural lands and the related natural resources. Despite the advantages and benefits of agritourism, it can cause environmental degradation, illegal construction, destruction of wildlife, dispersal of plant species, spread of wastes, and loss of local culture quality in the absence of proper educational promotion among farmers, residents, and tourists. Hence, in their tourism development studies, experts and thinkers from different countries have emphasized the importance and necessity of paying attention to sustainability in the tourism sector. Sustainable tourism development is a type of development, in which the balance of the values and quality of ethics with economic principles and advantages is maintained and efforts are made to replace the balanced development with a purely economical comprehensive development. Studies have shown that agritourism, especially in the west of Mazandaran Province, has not been very prosperous and there are no specific programs and actions for its development to be considered by the relevant organizations and officials. Therefore, this issue was addressed in the present study so as to identify the facilitators of and barriers to this type of sustainable development. Methodology: This research was conducted based on an exploratory sequential mixed (qualitative-quantitative) method. In the first stage, i.e., the qualitative part, the obstacles to and promoters of agricultural tourism development were identified through semi-structured interviews with 21 tourism experts from various organizations. Selection of the experts was done based on a purposeful method. The results of the qualitative part finally led to identifying 50 indicators and 70 deterrents, which were categorized in the 8 socio-cultural, physical-physical, political-legal, managerial, communication-advertising, intellectual infrastructure, participatory, and marketing factors based on their natures in order to conduct the quantitative part of the research by assessing each of the drivers and inhibitors of agritourism development in the form of a questionnaire. The questions were based on a 5-part Likert scale. In this part, a force field analysis was utilized. This method is a technique for identifying and analyzing the forces that affect a problem situation. The statistical population included a small part of rural villagers living in the west of Mazandaran Province. Due to the population dispersion and extent of distribution, a multi-stage method was applied for sampling, through which 69 general villagers were employed to complete the questionnaire. The obtained data were coded, analyzed, and described based on the force field analysis method using SPSSWIN20 and Pathmakerver5.5 software. Results: The following results were achieved for the current situation assessed by the driving and restraining forces related to the 8 mentioned factors affecting agritourism sustainability in the studied area: The highest scores of the physical-physical driving factors and barriers were related to the indices of the region's susceptibility to planning of and investment in agritourism and the tendencies of most people to use the private spaces of their villages in the forms of villas and private gardens, respectively. The highest scores of the political-legal driving factors and deterrents were related to the indices of providing appropriate measures to prevent the change of garden and agricultural land use to residential land use and difficulty in obtaining permits, respectively. The highest scores of management driving factors and deterrents were related to the indices of holding scientific educational workshops, personal meetings, and agricultural conferences and lack of concern for agricultural tourism among city officials, respectively. The highest scores of communication-advertising factors and barriers were related to the indices of timely information for holding agricultural exhibitions and weak advertisement for identifying agritourism capabilities in the region, respectively. The highest scores of the factors promoting and hindering the intellectual infrastructure were related to the indices of academic attention to agriculture and existence of a university unit in the province and lack of indigenous people’s education in the different surrounding regions, respectively. The highest scores of the participatory drivers and deterrents were related to the indices of villagers and indigenous peoples’ participations in the tourist guidance program and weak participation of travel agencies in agricultural tourism, respectively. Finally, the highest scores of marketing drivers and deterrents were related to the indices of tourist demand for agricultural tourism purposes and local organic products and lack of local people and tourists’ knowledge of the market and its capacities, respectively. The results of the obtained scores revealed that out of the 8 factors of promotion and deterrence in the mentioned dimensions, the scores of the deterrents were higher, indicating that the deterrents were stronger in the current situation. In general, agriculture in the current situation in western Mazandaran was associated with more obstacles and greater deterrents. Conclusion: The results demonstrated that the outcome scores of the deterrent forces were higher than those of the driving forces, and thus, the deterrent forces were stronger than the driving forces in the current situation. This indicated that sustainable development of agricultural tourism in the studied area was not possible based on the present driving factors. Therefore, according to the suggestions and solutions presented for each factor in the section of suggestions, it is necessary to strengthen the driving forces and weaken the inhibitors, the end-result of which will be agritourism sustainability. 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