Analysis of the impact of information and communication technology on creative tourism (Case study: rural areas of Isfahan province)

In the literature and planning of tourism studies and tourism development, creativity and innovation are undoubtedly considered essential factors for development. Isfahan province, as one of the country's tourism hubs and the 7.8% share of this province in the development of digital technology, can play a significant role in development. According to the mentioned introduction, the rural areas of Isfahan province, which have the capacity and capability of tourism, have not used this opportunity as they should, and the residents of these areas have faced many problems, information and communication technologies as an effective component in to introduce, identify, expand and develop tourism in these areas, it can be fruitful. Therefore, the current research seeks to answer the following question: What are the effects of information and communication technology on the creation of creative tourism infrastructures in the studied area?

The current research is applied research in terms of its purpose and causal research in terms of its nature. The statistical population of the research consisted of 3808 heads of households in 19 villages selected for tourism in Isfahan province. Cochran's formula was used to calculate the statistical sample size, and based on this, the sample size was estimated to be 349 households, which were selected by systematic random method from the rural community. Cronbach's alpha method was used in SPSS 22 to comply with the working principles and technique and to measure the reliability in compiling and setting up the questionnaire. The results indicate that the questionnaire has high reliability so the total reliability of the questionnaire is equal to 0.855. Also, while ensuring the normality of the data distribution, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to measure the data collected from the T-Tech test, and the structural equation model (Smart PLS) was used.

The results of the Pearson correlation test (assuring the normal distribution of the data) show that there is a positive and significant correlation between the dimensions of information and communication technology with the formation of creative tourism infrastructure at a significance level of less than 0.01, so with the increase in the use of information and communication and its dimensions, creative tourism infrastructure has also improved.  To investigate the impact of information and communication technology on creative tourism infrastructure, using the variance-based structural equation modeling approach, the independent and dependent variables of the research were entered into the structural equation model as latent variables and in the form of first-order factor models. All the indicators of the current research have a factor load of more than 0.4 and have high reliability and validity for measuring variables, and there is an acceptable correlation between the indicators. The relationship between indicators is significant and direct; According to the standard coefficients, 27.2% of the changes in the creative tourism infrastructure level are directly predicted by the creative process index. In general, according to the coefficient of determination (R2) for the variable of creative tourism infrastructure (0.967), it was found that the influence of rural information-communication technology on creative tourism infrastructure is strong.

Creative rural tourism can add new parts to the economic, social, cultural, and management dimensions of the village and create new opportunities for the development of the village on a national and transnational scale. In general, according to the coefficient of determination (R2) for the variable of creative tourism infrastructure (0.967), it was determined that the influence of rural information-communication technology (ICT) on creative tourism infrastructure is strong; And 99.7 percent of creative tourism infrastructure changes in the studied area are predicted by the use of rural information-communication technology. The value obtained for the GOF index (0.887), also confirms the very appropriate fit of the structural model of the research.