Kebria Moradi, Hamdollah Sojasi Qeidary, Hamid Shayan, Omid Ali Kharazmi,
Volume 10, Issue 38 (3-2022)
Introduction
In recent decades, the international growth of agricultural tourism in rural economies has raised a number of important policy-related topics for local development planning, the most important of which is the development of production and support for entrepreneurship in agricultural tourism. Given that entrepreneurship in all areas, including agricultural tourism, is a complex phenomenon, agricultural tourism as a complex system encompasses a large range of interactions between economic, environmental, social, technical and financial elements. Therefore, the development of entrepreneurial businesses for agricultural tourism is based on the framework of the factors that make up the environment of a system. Therefore, all these factors must be investigated. Because these factors are interrelated and interact directly and indirectly. In this regard, identifying key factors and factors in the development of entrepreneurial businesses as a complex system can help to revitalize rural areas of the region and is effective in realizing the goals of entrepreneurship in rural areas. Therefore, in this research, it will be tried to identify the proposed dimensions and components for the development of entrepreneurial businesses in the field of agricultural tourism, and the model of development of entrepreneurial businesses in agricultural tourism will be provided based on the causality model.
Methodology
The current research is an applied research and regarding the results, it is an exploratory research. In this regard, the factors affecting the development of entrepreneurial businesses in agricultural tourism were identified and classified in four socio-cultural, individual skills, tourism facilities and policies. This research also focuses on the rural areas of Mahallat town due to its potential and its ability to develop agricultural tourism. According to field studies of 40 villages in the studied area in two districts of Khorheh and Bagherabad, 21 villages with agricultural tourism capability were identified and selected. In order to investigate the effect of each variable in the causal factors model, 30 questionnaires were designed and delivered to the executive and academic elites. Vensim software was used to draw the causal diagram based on systematic thinking, and to analyze the collected data, descriptive and inferential statistics (single sample and Friedman) were used in SPSS software.
Discussions and Results
The results of t test indicate that the factor of policy making and its related variables are the highest mean and then the factor of facilities and services of tourism with 4.02, the factor of individual skills with 3.8, socio-cultural factor with 3.7 and the factor of local capacity with 3.6 are placed in the next ranks respectively. Regarding the fact that in recent years, entrepreneurship is considered as one of the important components of job creation and economic development in societies, so in the last few decades, policymakers in different societies have tried to develop entrepreneurial policies for economic growth. Also, given that the rural development plays a very important role in national development, the development of entrepreneurial activities in rural areas can be considered as a tool for national development. The results of the research on the basis of the t test show that the impact of the policy making factor on the development of entrepreneurial businesses in agricultural tourism is ranked first, and the factor of tourism facilities and services, socio-cultural factors, individual skills and local agricultural capacities are the next ranks respectively. The results of the Friedman test also indicate that the factor of policy making is ranked first by the experts, so the findings of this study indicate that the government as the most influential factor through policies and policies related to the development of entrepreneurial entrepreneurship in the field of agricultural tourism and supportive policies can enhance the motivation and the fields of entrepreneurship development in the villages. On the other hand, it has a direct impact on other factors as well. Also, the cultural and social factor and policy will have a significant impact on the individual skills factor as there are positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship in the community as well as policy makers support entrepreneurial activities in rural areas, the desire for entrepreneurial activities in agricultural tourism grows in local communities. It also boosts social and communication skills, entrepreneurship creativity and innovation, and high-quality services, resulting in tourists coming to the region more frequently and defining their good experience everywhere. Also, the factors of policy making and individual skills will directly affect the factors of the facilities and services of the tourism because when qualified human resources are trained in local communities, especially experienced tour guides and thus creating interaction between tourists and residents of the region and awareness of tourists' needs can serve as a stimulating factor for satisfaction and safety of tourists. Local capacity factor is also an important factor in the development of entrepreneurial businesses in rural areas, because there is no potential and developmental capacity for this type of tourism in many areas.