Investigation and Identifing The Potentials, Capabilities and Limitations of Tourism Industry in Rural Areas Case Study: Meymand Village in Kerman County

Appreance of tourism as a need and its changing in to one of the largest service industry in the world and its professionalization has created this chance that each destination can hope to benefit from the resources of tourism. This study aimed to investigate the tourism potential and capabilities of Meymand village and present strategic solutions for developing rural tourism in this area. This research is of applied type and the study method is a combination of descriptive-analytical one. The research population were two groups of tourists and expert tourists that were selected based on Cochran formula among 750 tourists of year 2013 and 35 tourist experts and 150 people were selected as the research sample. Also, all tourism experts in research area were interviewed.then a questionaire was used for gathering data. The reliebility of questionaire was assessed with Cronbach’s alpha, rated from 0.73 for tourists up to 0.84 for the experts. Statistical models such as factor analysis in SPSS software environment , SWOT model and Exel software were used to analyze the data. The results of factor analysis showed that infrastructure services with 14.682 percent, cultural factor with 9.934 percent, Reception Services With 7.087 percent, health services with 5.254 percent, economic factor with 4.757 percent and welfare facilities with 4.501 are the important factors in promoting tourist attrwaction. Also, the results of SWOT analysis showed this fact that Meymand village in spite of opportunitie and strenght points such as geographic location, diversity resources and natural historical and cultural attractions is faced with several threats and weaknesses points including the lack of tourism infrastructure and enough propaganda. This research is seeking to help the tourism industry of this village through presenting proper strategies. Among the strategies, the strength points with 3.222, weaknesses with 2.989, opportunities with 2.864, and threats with 2.785 scores were ranked respectively. With respect to the results of tables 4,5 and 12, the research hypothesis is confirmed, so that in Meymand Village, the internal factors can have a more important and effective role on the tourism development in comparing with the external ones.