Spatial Analysis of Tourism Impacts on the Economy of Rural Areas (Case Study: Rezvanshahr County, Iran)

Purpose Tourism, as a booming and dominant activity of this century, has a lot of effects in rural areas, including economic effects, which according to different spatial situations can have different intensity and directions of changes and developments. In this regard, this study was codified with the aim of spatial analysis of tourism impacts on rural areas of Rezvanshahr.; Design/methodology/approach According to the purpose, nature and method, this study is considered as a developmental and descriptiveanalytical research, respectively. Documentary and survey methods have been used to obtain the required information and the TOPSIS model has been used to rank the economic and social needs of the villages studied. Using SPSS and GIS software, the collected data was processed and Pearson correlation test was used in inferential analysis of data.; Findings The results showed that the economic level of villages varies based on four indicators (the income level, unemployment rate, level of facilities and misery rate), the lowest and the highest of which are related to KisheKhaleh village with 0.001 and Punnel village with 0.9056, respectively. Furthermore, the results of Pearson correlation coefficient showed that there is a significant relationship between the independent variable of the number of tourists and dependent variable of the local economy level with a correlation coefficient of 0.626 at a confidence level of 0.99.; Research limitations / implications The lack of documented information and the indeterminate number of tourists, especially in rural areas, are the most important challenges and problems of the study.; Practical implications Therefore, according to the findings, It is possible to shape the economic development of villages by developing tourism attractions and actualizing the potential of tourist attraction in settlements.; Originality/value Numerous studies have, so far, been carried out on tourism and rural economics. However, this study is valued based on the spatial analysis of the economy in the rural areas of the three types of coastal, plain and mountainous/ highland in the district of Rezvanshah and has not been addressed in previous studies.