Compilation of Rural Tourism Development Scenarios in Heris County

Rural tourism is a part of the tourism market and a source of employment and income. Planning and foresight of sustainable development of tourism has attracted the attention of many policy-makers, sociologists, and planners around the world in order to provide the foresight of sustainable development of tourism in economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Based on the need for future research in the field of rural tourism in Heris County, the current research aims to answer the question that what are the scenarios that will affect the future development of rural tourism in Heris County? Based on this, the current research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of nature and method. According to the objectives of the present research, document-based (library) study and interview were used as the method and tools of data collection. The panel of respondents consists of 30 university professors as well as planning and development experts. Through the research process, 62 scenarios with high compatibility were selected and considering that each of the key factors has 3 possible scenarios, each scenario was divided into 3 categories, favorable, static, and critical. "The lack of implementation of specific policies and programs to pay attention to rural tourists as cultural ambassadors" was identified as a compatible scenario, which is supported by the assumption of "coherent and efficient planning in direction of designing suitable spaces for holding ceremonies and traditional rituals using cultural symbols (designing cultural routes) for tourists)".