Analyzing the Negative Impacts of Tourism Development in Rural Areas of Qazvin Province (Case study: Gazarkhan Village)

Constrained by remoteness and underdevelopment, rural areas have limited options for economic development. Traditional ways of earning a livelihood on crops or stock provide the primary sources of income. To stimulate rural economies, it has become inevitable for rural regions to seek alternative uses for local resources. With comparatively advantageous effects in income and employment generation, tourism is an option for enhancing rural lifestyles and for inducing positive changes in the distribution of income in underprivileged regions. This perceived need for a revival of the rural economy has led to the development of catering policies for tourism and recreation out of agriculture’s way in rural areas. Tourism has become the priority tool of rural planning. However, rural tourism like other types of tourism has the negative and positive impacts. The negative impacts of rural tourism sometime outweigh its positive impacts due to lack of appropriate management and planning. Local price inflation, migration of labor force, destruction in the local work structure, participation of women in part-time and low-income works, seasonal patterns of demands, change of local culture patterns, reduction of life patterns, different types of pollutions and residues made by tourists, destroying available animal shelters by constructing new buildings, change of local culture for conforming to tourist’s culture, environmental destruction in the region are some of the most significant negative impacts of rural tourism. Regarding the importance of the topic, the main purpose of this survey was analyzing the negative impacts of tourism development in Gazarkhan village in Qazvin Province. Methodologically, this research was a descriptive- correlation survey. The statistical population in the research consisted of all household heads in Gazarkhan village (N= 750). According to the Cochran formula, 115 persons of household heads were selected by simple random sampling technique. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. A panel of experts confirmed the validity of the questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted to establish reliability of the instrument. Cronbach alpha's coefficient for the scale of “importance of negative impacts of tourism development in Gazarkhan village” was 0.77. Collected data were analyzed using the SPSSWin18 software. The descriptive results revealed that three variables including increase of villagers’ willing to use fancy and decorative goods, impact of tourists’ behavior and lifestyle on rural people’s behavior and lifestyle (changes in the type of clothing, speaking style,. ..) and create income gap between rural residents in the area, have achieved the highest priority, respectively. Also, the finding of factor analysis of negative impacts of tourism development in Gazarkhan village extracted four factors named as Socio- cultural; Economic, Environmental and Physical impacts explained 60.03% of total variances of negative impacts of tourism development in rural areas.