Scanning of Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the Agritourism in Villages Located in the Suburbs of the Metropolitan Cities of Iran: An Empirical Review
International Conference on Business, Economics and Tourism Management, December 28-30 2012
Posted: 29 Jul 2012 Last revised: 27 Oct 2014
Date Written: December 27, 2012
Abstract
Paying attention to small and medium sized enterprises – given the special characteristics they have and the limitations they face in the vicinities of metropolitan cities – in the rural and particularly the agricultural tourism sectors can provide the basis for the improvement of advantages gained from tourism especially with regards to employment and entrepreneurship and additionally it leads to an optimized management of rural tourism activities. The purpose of this paper is to identify entrepreneurial opportunities that contribute to the development of agricultural tourism. In this research, we have implemented the opportunity discovery model proposed by Morrison and then after reviewing all published works in the field of rural and agricultural tourism in the time span between 2005 and 2010, we present our final evaluation. The sample size of the field research approximately includes over 1580 individuals in the localities and over 12587 villages from all across Iran. This shows that if reinforced by appropriate policies, the agricultural tourism in the suburbs of the metropolitan cities in developing countries can be advantageous for the farmers, governments and tourists. For such a change to take effect, an integration of economic, social, legal and managerial approaches is but necessary. The results from the research give a comprehensive insight into the state of agricultural tourism.
Keywords: AgriTourism, Scanning, Rural tourism Opportunity Identification
JEL Classification: M13, M12, M19, L83, Q13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation