Determining Indicators for Agritourism Development Potential Evaluation in Iran

Document Type : Scientific - Research

Authors

• Mojtaba zare ¹
• Abdolmajid Mahdavi ²
• Hossein mahmoudi ³
• Fateme Aghamir ³
• Faeze Asadian Ardakani ⁴

¹ Department, Environmental Sciences Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

² -Agroecology Department, Environmental Sciences Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

³ Agroecology Department, Environmental Sciences Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

⁴ Economic, Management, and Accounting Department - Tourism Management. Yazd University, Iran.

10.22067/jag.v13i4.87833

Abstract

Introduction
Tourism is still based on the significant role of human resources, regardless of technological development in the world, so that this industry leads to direct employment in sub-sectors of industry and indirect employment in many activities. Tourism is one of the most important industries in the contemporary world. Despite the growth of tourism, the agriculture industry is facing a growing number of challenges, such as intensifying market competition, limited access to lands, increasing cost of inputs and lower commodity prices, which has led to lower incomes for small-scale farms around the world. Therefore, in order to survive, agriculture has to find a way to add value to its products and create reliable sources of income. Agritourism provides many economic, educational, and social benefits to producers, consumers (tourists) and society. Besides, agritourism motivates farmers to stay in this job. Agritourism is a job that farmers and ranchers do during agricultural, horticultural or agricultural business activities, intending to create entertainment, leisure and gain experience for visitors and educate them, without replacing service activities with productive activities, this also raises farmers' incomes.
Materials and Methods
After choosing the Fuzzy Delphi method, we formed the implementation, guidance, and monitoring teams. Then, the initial indicators and sub-indicators were extracted to develop a preliminary questionnaire. In the next step, the questionnaire, whose questions were based on those sub-indicators, was designed. Then, the questionnaires were validated and sent to the elected specialists in different Delphi rounds. After the experts' answers were collected, the desired indicators were selected. For picking the indicators, the fuzzy value of each question was calculated and converted to a defuzzification value and later compared to the threshold value.
Results and Discussion
After three rounds of Fuzzy Delphi method, indicators and sub-indicators were chosen. In the first round of the Fuzzy Delphi method, seven sub-indicators were removed from 43 extracted ones. In addition, at this stage, two sub-indicators of non-governmental organizations active in the tourism sector and farmers' social incentives to accept tourists were added to the extracted indicators. At the end of the second round, 38 sub-indicators had defuzzification value above the mean range. At this stage, these indicators were not removed or added, but since some of the questions did not include the consensus of experts’ opinions, Fuzzy Delphi process entered the third round. After the third round of Fuzzy Delphi and reviewing its results, we found that the defuzzification values of all research questions in this round are greater than the mean range. Therefore, all the indicators of the third questionnaire are valuable. On the other hand, in the previous round, no new indicators have been proposed by experts, therefore, based on these results, we have reached the research goal to identify effective indicators in the process of assessing the capacity of agritourism in Iran. There is also a condition of consensus or agreement for all questions, which represents the Fuzzy Delphi method completion and the indicators' selection.
Conclusion
The results of this study represent that eight indicators and 38 sub-indicators should be considered to evaluate the development potential of agritourism in Iran. The indicators are as follows: cost, farm and environment, infrastructure, rules and regulations and policy, attitude and ability of the host community, fun and shopping, security and safety and last but not least, tourist attractions. There are few studies on agritourism in Iran, and since the agritourism industry plays an important role in rural development in the world, it needs to be given more attention in Iran. Therefore, in future studies, it is recommended to weigh these indicators and study and compare the potential of Iranian villages based on the indicators extracted in this study and the weight assigned to each indicator.

Keywords

• Agricultural festival
• Fuzzy Delphi
• Rural development
• Rural tourism

20.1001.1.20087713.1400.13.4.6.1

---

References

Artuğer, S., and Kendir, H., 2013. Agritourist motivations: The case of Turke. International Journal of Business and Management 8(21): 63-69.

Bakhtiari, B., and Bakhtiari, A., 2013. Determination of tourism climate index in Kerman province. Desert 18(2): 113-126.

Bernardo, D., Valentin, L., and Leatherman, J., 2004. Agritourism: if we build it, will they come. In Risk and Profit Conference, Manhattan, KS, pp. 19-20.

Blancas, F., Lozano-Oyola, M., González, M., Guerrero, F.M., and Caballero, R., 2011. How to use sustainability indicators for tourism planning: The case of rural tourism in Andalusia (Spain). Science of the Total Environment 412: 28-45.

Brown, D.M., and Reeder, R.J., 2007. Farm-based recreation: A statistical profile. USDA; Economic Research Report Number 53, Washington. D.C.

Busby, G., and Rendle, S., 2000. The transition from tourism on farms to farm tourism. Tourism management 21(6): 635-642.

Chang, P., Hsu, C.W., and Chang, P.C., 2011. Fuzzy Delphi method for evaluating hydrogen production technologies. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 36(21): 14172-14179.

Dalkey, N.C., 1969. The Delphi method: An experimental study of group opinion. No. RM-5888-PR. RAND CORP SANTA MONICA CALIF.

Dubois, C., Cawley, M., and Schmitz, S., 2017. The tourist on the farm: A ‘muddled’image. Tourism management 59: 298-311.

Hatch, A.D., 2008. Agri-tourism: A new agricultural business enterprise. LSU Ag Center Research and Extension.

Hsu, Y., Lee, C.H., and Kreng, V.B., 2010. The application of fuzzy delphi method and fuzzy AHP in lubricant regenerative technology selection. Expert Systems with Applications 37(1): 419-425.

Statistica. 2021. Total contribution of travel and tourism to gross domestic product (GDP) worldwide from 2006 to 2020. Available online at: https://www.statista.com/search/?q=tourism+2017&qKat=search

Kaufman, A., and Gupta, M.M., 1988. Introduction to Fuzzy Arithmetic: Theory and Application, Van no Strand Reinhold. New York.

Kidd, J., 2011. Hospitality on the farm: The development of a systems Model of farm tourism. Asean Journal on Hospitality and Tourism 10(1): 17-26.

Rural tourism in Europe: experiences, development and perspectives, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro 24-25 June 2002, Kielce, Poland, 6-7 June 2003, Yaremcha, Ukraine, 25-26 September 2003 (2004): 195-199.

Liu, Weng-Kun., 2013. Application of the fuzzy delphi method and the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process for the managerial competence of multinational corporation executives. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning 3(4): 313.

Maruti, K.V., 2009. Agro-tourism: Scope and opportunities for the farmers in Maharashtra. IndiaStat; Sept-Oct, 1-11.

Mearns, K.F., 2012. Lessons from the application of sustainability indicators to community-based ecotourism ventures in Southern Africa. African Journal of Business Management 6(26): 7851-7860.

Miandehi, P.M., and Masrouri, M.Y., 2013. Assessment of SWOT model on tourism industry in sustainable development of rural areas: Case study on Bandar-E Anzali. World Applied Sciences Journal 21(3): 455-464.

Naderifar, M., Goli, H., and Ghaljaie, F., 2017. Snowball sampling: A purposeful method of sampling in qualitative research. Strides in Development of Medical Education 14(3): e67670.

Ochterski, J., and Roth, M., 2008. Getting started in agritourism. Cornell Cooperative Extension; The University of Vermont, Publication Number 825; 34 Pp.

Oh, Chi-Ok., 2005. The contribution of tourism development to economic growth in the Korean economy. Tourism Management 26(1): 39-44.

Page, S., and Getz, D., 1997. The business of rural tourism: International perspectives. Cengage Learning EMEA, 1^st Edition; 240 pp.

Park, D.B., and Yoon, Y.S., 2011. Developing sustainable rural tourism evaluation indicators. International Journal of Tourism Research 13(5): 401-415.

Santucci, F.M., 2015. Agritourism for rural development in Italy, evolution, situation and perspectives. Fundamental and Applied Studies in the Modern World pp. 315.

Srikatanyoo, N., and Campiranon, K., 2010. Agritourist needs and motivations: The Chiang Mai case. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 27(2): 166-178.

Tsaur, S.H., and Wang, C.H., 2007. The evaluation of sustainable tourism development by analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy set theory: An empirical study on the Green Island in Taiwan. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 12(2): 127-145.

Walker, M.A., 2009. Agritourism: Ideas and resources. Virginia Cooperative Extension. Publication 310-004.

Zarei, B., and Chaqoei, Y., 2014. Organizational pathology of project-oriented companies: Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company. Development and Evolution Management 16: 41-49. (In Persian with English Summary)

Sadeghi, A., Azar, A., Valmohammadi, C., 2018. Designing a performance evaluation model for service supply chain using neural-fuzzy networks to increase service quality and productivity (Case study: home appliance companies in Iran). Scientific Journal of Engineering and Quality Management. (In Persian with English Summary)

Seidali, M., Soleimangoli, R., and Gharaghozloo, H., 2012. Investigation tourism consquencese on rural development: The case of Chehel Chay rural district in Minodasht city. Geographical Journal of Tourism Space 1(3): 69-88. (In Persian with English Summary)

Azami, A., Heshmati, J.M., Sulaimany, A. and Alibaygi, A., 2016. Explanation of tourism effects to sustainable rural development: (Case study: Ryjab village in Dalahoo city, Kermanshah province). Heritage and Tourism; 1(1): 1-21 (In Persian with English Summary).

Jayne, T.S., Chamberlin, J., and Headey, D.D., 2014. Land pressures, the evolution of farming systems, and development strategies in Africa: A synthesis. Food Policy 48: 1-17.

OECD., 2016. Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa: Prospects and challenges for the next decade. In: OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2016-2025, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/agr_outlook-2016-5-en.

Boz, A., and Sercek, S., 2016. The Role of Tourism in Regional Development and Its Effects on Economic Development. PROCEEDINGS E-BOOK II, p. 41.

Veljković, B., and Broćić, Z., 2017, June. Agritourism and Rural Development. In: TISC-Tourism International Scientific Conference Vrnjačka Banja 2(2): 480-499.