Explaining the effect of social capital indicators of local residents on rural tourism entrepreneurship(Case study: Soltanieh tourism center - Katlekhor cave)

Todays, in most countries, tourism entrepreneurship has been emphasized as a potential tool for distribution and redistribution of wealth at all levels of society. In this framework, a special attention has been paid to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs in the field of rural tourism. Social capital as a cohesive factor plays an important role in developing and facilitating local network structures, which can ultimately lead to the improvement of rural tourism entrepreneurship. In this regard, the existence of other components of social capital, such as social awareness, social trust and participation of villagers can ultimately lead to the promotion of rural tourism entrepreneurship. The purpose of the current research is to explain the effect of social capital indicators of local residents on rural tourism entrepreneurship in Soltanieh-Ghar Katlekhor tourism center.

This is an applies research that its method is method descriptive-analytical. Documentary and field methods have been used to collect data. The statistical population of the research is all the villagers of Soltanieh-Ghar Katlekhor axis, which according to Kochran's formula, the sample number is 322 people. To analyze the data, Pearson's correlation test and structural equations were used using PLS software.

The results of Pearson's correlation show a positive and significant relationship between social capital and tourism entrepreneurship. In other words, with the promotion of social capital components, tourism entrepreneurship has increased in the rural settlements of the study area. Among social capital indicators, network index with 0.586 and participation with 0.563 have the highest correlation with tourism entrepreneurship. Investigating the effect of social capital indicators on tourism entrepreneurship using PIS software showed that the factor loadings indicate the degree of correlation of each questionnaire question with the latent variable of the factors. The results of the impact show that the social trust indicator, with an impact factor of 156.2, had the greatest impact on tourism entrepreneurship. In other indicators, the impacts were not significant.

According to the results, social capital has led to the development of tourism entrepreneurship in the studied area. Therefore, proper communication and interaction of people with organizations, local managers, neighbors and other people of the village will lead to the development and increase of rural tourism entrepreneurship. In this regard, communication and cooperation between rural entrepreneurs with tourism businesses should also be developed.