Investigating the Impact of Local People's Attitude on the Sustainability of Rural Areas in Developing Rural Tourism (Case Study: Qalat District of Shiraz)

Abstract

The new approach to tourism has aimed to improve the quality of life of local residents, enhancing tourists' experiences and preserving the environment of the destination. Paying attention to the role of local people and measuring different levels of sustainability makes it easier to understand and promote the development of rural tourism. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of local people's attitude on the general sustainability of rural areas in rural tourism development. The research is applied in terms of the purpose and in terms of method is of descriptive-surveying type. The population of the research is locals and tourists in the Qalat area near the city of Shiraz. For this purpose, a sample of 385 people was selected based on the Morgan table and by simple random sampling method for locals and sampling available to tourists. By reviewing the literature and theoretical bases, the hypotheses and research model were developed. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Reliability of the questionnaire was measured using Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability and its validity was measured using convergent and divergent validity. To investigate the research hypotheses, the structural equation model called "path analysis" was used in WARP PLS software. The results of this study showed that, regardless of local people's attitude as moderators, social sustainability, economic sustainability and environmental sustainability variables have the most impact on rural tourism development in Qalat area, but by moderating the attitude of local people, economic sustainability Tourism development does not affect the relationship between environmental sustainability and the development of rural tourism.

Keywords

• local attitudes
• economic sustaiability
• social sustainability
• environmental sustainability
• warp pls