Abstract
In Iran, due to the multiplicity, diversity and cultural-natural potential of rural areas, developing ecotourism is accepted as a key solution to sustainable rural development. The government putting strong emphasis on analysing the capacities and obstacles of promoting rural tourism in order to making effective strategies. Kiskan Rural District (KRD) in Kerman Province has great potential for ecotourism development to diversify rural economy, employment and income generation. So the purpose of this study is to investigate the rural ecotourism situation of KRD through SWOT analysis. It is an applied research that uses documentary and field methods including observation, unstructured interview and a questionnaire to data gathering. A group of local managers, counting Village Council Members and Rural Mayors, were selected by snowball sampling method. To this end, the status of rural ecotourism in KRD is determined and the weight of each of the four SWOT factors is measured. Results show that KRD ecotourism development strategy is «SO» (aggressive), which should exploit the strengths to take advantage of the available opportunities.
Highlights
In many developing countries, a growing tourism industry is seen as a potential solution to issues such as low employment rates or the need for foreign currencies and generating higher government revenues (Rid et al 2014)
After primary and secondary data collection about the ecotourism attractions in Kiskan Rural District (KRD) and its driving factors and inhibitors that divided into two categories of external and internal factors, SWOT analysis was performed to specify the strategic priorities to ecotourism development in the area
In conformity with the data gathered from local managers, 8 opportunities, 5 threats, 6 strengths and 10 weaknesses and their importance to ecotourism development in KRD were identified
Summary
A growing tourism industry is seen as a potential solution to issues such as low employment rates or the need for foreign currencies and generating higher government revenues (Rid et al 2014). According to World Tourism Organisation, tourism can play a significant role in all seventeen goals of SDGs especially ending poverty (Goal 1) and hunger (Goal 2), promoting sustainable economic growth (Goal 8) and making human settlements more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (Goal 11) (UNWTO 2015) It is a fast growing industry (Lv 2019) around the world in many types such as ecotourism, geotourism, cultural, adventure, sport, and rural tourism, etc. The World Tourism Organization designates sustainable tourism as «Tourism which fully takes into account its present and future economic situation, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities» (Sörensson 2014) In this framework, ecotourism means responsible travel to natural areas, which seeks to conserve the environment and sustain the wellbeing of the local communities (Cobbinah et al 2017). Ecotourism brings numerous advantages, such as alleviate poverty, promoting socio-economic growth and well-being of local communities, natural resources conservation, and the economic and social improvement of nearby population (Su et al 2014; Cater et al 2015; Jozi and Moradi Majd 2015; Anup 2016; Chen and Qiu 2017)
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