Evaluation of Tourism Effects on Rural Areas of Tourist village of the Central District of Firoozabad County Using Factor Analysis Model

Abstract

This survey research was conducted with the aim of evaluating the effects of tourism development on rural tourism destination areas. The statistical population was composed of 437 households resided in central District of Firoozabad county from which, 155 households were selected by using Bartlett Table and simple random sampling method. The research instrument was a custom-made questionnaire. Factor analysis findings showed that in terms of the economic effects of the combination of 21 variables, four factors (economic opportunities, living expenses, employment and economic gap) explained 63.30 % of variances. In the field of social effects, factor loadings of the 33 items were produced seven factors (community consolidation, social harm and promotion of culture, cultural exchanges, acculturation, assimilation and changing lifestyle) and overall accounted for 65.646 % of variances. A combination of 27 physical- environmental items yielded four factors, health and sanitation problems, infrastructural effects, landscape degradation and natural environment change.

Keywords

• rural tourism
• economic-social consequences
• factor analysis
• host community
• firoozabad