Geographical Research

Tourism was an industry that its development in any region requires sufficient realizing of the issues and affecting factors such as economic، social and cultural factors. Abyaneh have the unique characteristics in environmental، cultural attractions، natural، and the human and religious. If scientific planning and management be use، it will become poles of tourism and center of rural tourism development in the Isfahan province. The major question of this study is «what was the positive and negative impact of rural tourism in Abyaneh?» So the main purpose of research was to analyze strengths، weakness، opportunities and threats of rural tourism development in Abyaneh. The research type was the applied-descriptive that data were gathered by survey method. The research instrument was questionnaires that consist of 41 variables. The questionnaire''s validity was confirmed by a panel of specialist and faculty members. Reliability was measured after pre-test by Cronbachs'' alpha and it was 0.72 that was acceptable. Random sampling was used and sample size was included 170 visitors that calculated by Cochran formula. Descriptive and principal component analysis method by SPSS software and SWOT model was used for data analysis. Results SWOT of model showed that the village of Abyaneh despite having the capability to become as regional model for rural tourism had fundamental barriers for meeting this aim. Barriers were such as; lack of health facilities for tourists (0.475 weighting score)، lack of suitable introducing and advertising (0.42 weighting score)، shortage of trained and specialist persons (0.408 weighting score) and unfamiliarity in people behavior deal with tourist (0.335 weighting score) in weakness component. Also the finding showed that the major strengths were such as; unique architecture and texture ( 0.3 weighted scores)، suitable facilities ( 0.18 weighting score)، attractive historical، ancient and religious sites (0.156 weighting score)، and the having local handicrafts market (0.147 weighting score).So، according to finding WT strategy selected as main strategy for future of rural tourism planning in Abyaneh. The findings of study could be used by national and provincial rural development planner، also could directly، contribute to rural tourism development related organizations and institutions as well as to individuals interested، researcher and practitioner.