مسعود سامیان

Purpose- Agritourism provides a sustainable substitute that supports international initiatives to address environmental issues and the increasing depletion of natural resources. The aim of this research is to investigate the role of agricultural tourism in sustainable rural development. Design/methodology/approach - The present study is a mixed research (qualitative-quantitative) type that was designed in two stages. In the first stage, In order to identify and extract the factors affecting the role of agricultural tourism in sustainable rural development, 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts in this field using purposive sampling method and considering the theoretical saturation index of data. Second stage: In the second stage, in order to ensure the accuracy of the first stage process and observe changes, exploratory factor analysis was performed without any initial division for the factors extracted from the first stage. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used in data analysis. The statistical population of the study at this stage was villages with agricultural tourism potential in the four cities of Tonekabon, Nowshahr, Sari, and Babol, which were selected based on a stratified random sampling method with proportional assignment, with a total of 320 people. Findings - The results of the second-order confirmatory factor analysis also showed that among the second-order factor loadings, the economic and infrastructure structure (0.94) has the greatest impact, followed by the political and institutional structure (0.87), the social and educational structure (0.76), and the human and climatic structure (0.69) respectively, which have the least impact on the main structure (the role of agricultural tourism in sustainable rural development). Practical Implications - Since Mazandaran province has high tourism potential, the results of this study can help policymakers to formulate an appropriate program in the field of agritourism in line with the sustainability of rural communities. Originality/Value - This study works towards sustainable development by providing a complete strategy for the development of agricultural tourism, and this study has attempted to fill the gaps and gaps in previous studies.