Assessment of Economic and Social Effects of Second Home Tourism of Rural Areas in Babol Township

Dadvar- Khani, Fazileh; Mohammadzadeh Larijani, Fatemeh

doi:10.22059/jhgr.2013.36137

Assessment of Economic and Social Effects of Second Home Tourism of Rural Areas in Babol Township

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

¹ Associate Prof., Dep. of Geography & Rural Planning, University of Tehran

² Ph.D. Candidate in Geography & Rural Planning, University of Tehran

10.22059/jhgr.2013.36137

Abstract

Extended Abstract
Introduction
Among various types of rural tourism, one of the most important types is second home tourism.
This article is going to analyse the effects of development of second homes as a consequence of
tourism development in rural areas of Eastern Bandpay villages, one of the township of Babol
countryside. Despite the growth of Second Home Tourism (SHT) in North of Iran, particularly
over the past 2 decades, there are a few researchs about the nature of such effects. The main
approach of the article is sustainable developmeant of tourism. It focuses on assessment of
economic and social effects of tourism on the area. These include both negative and positive
effects.
Methodology
The research has carried out on the basis of descriptive and exploratory method. The statistic
population of the reserach are local people in rural areas, second home owners and rural
managers and dicission markers. According to Cochrane Method a Sample Size of 60
participants has been chosen. The data have gathered by a questionnaire that had been made by
authors. The validaty of the questionnaire has been estimated by chronbach method and was
about 0.8 which is reliable. For analysing the data we have used Spearman Correlation test and
other descriptive methods by SPSS software.
Results and Discussion
This research has been conducted in Babol district in North of Iran. So, in this article the
negative and positive effects of second homes from view point of local communities and tourists
and rural managers have been argued. The results show that tourism has had different positive
effects on the economic and social aspects. It also shows that there are different ideas about
tourism economic effects, between three groups of the research participatiants. Meanwhile there
are the highest disagreement in the case of social effects.
Conclusion
The research findings indicate that rural managers had the most agreement about tourism
extension in the villages. In second level there is second home owners who admiredtourism as a
means for rural development. However, despite their knowledge about positive effects of
tourism, local people disagereed about tourism development in the current shape. They belive
that this process of tourism development will demolish social structure of their village.
Therefore, they emphasize on changing process of rural tourism development.

Keywords