Comparative Analysis of Attitudes of rural communities about the physical effects of Second Homes Tourism in the rural area. (Case Study: Babol District in North of IranAbstract)

Second homes are an integral component of tourism in rural and peripheral areas. Attractive rural areas of Northern region in Iran have recently experienced a rapid growth of second home developments. Despite the growth of Second Home Tourism (SHT) in North of Iran particularly over the past 2 decades, there are a few researches about the nature or such effects. Due to theimportance of this phenomenon, this article is likely the first step towards investigating the matter at a local level in the area. The study seeks to examine the perceptions of SHT within local communities; on the basis of sustainable development approach. By understanding that SHT has different environmental, social and economic effects, this study is concentrated only on physical effects. The research has been done on the basis of descriptive and exploratory methods. Random sample of 120 individuals (residents and tourists) were selected by using stratified method. But all local administrators who were 6 people, participated in interviews and completed the questionnaires. The data gathered by questionnaires with validity of 0.8 % is reliable. For analyzing the data, descriptive methods by SPSS software has been used. This study has been carried out in Babol district in North of Iran. So in this article the negative and positive effects of second homes from view point of local residents and tourists and rural managers have been discussed. The results show that the second home tourism sector, strongly driven by private real estate investors, fails to generate tourism activities which are expected to sustain community development and it is going far away from traditional pattern of local housing. This study further indicates that municipalities concentrating on the second home tourism segment may deprive access to other forms of tourism activities. The results on the basis of Tukey and Duncan test shows that there are convergence between the positive effects of second homes in the physical structure of villages among managers, tourists and residents. But the greatest divergence is appeared in the opinions about the negative physical effects of the second homes between managers and tourists. So that, unlike tourists, managers believe that the second homes have left more negative physical effects behind on rural areas such as land use changes and commercialization of grasslands and river. Meanwhile the villagers have more positive view about the impacts of second homes tourism but referring to their privacy violations as a negative effect. Finally the findings show that SHT can lead to unsustainable condition by leaving negative effects on physical environment of villages, so applying the land use zoning strategy and design the guidelines for the sustainable development can be useful to achieve rural sustainable development