Assessing the Impact of Religious Tourism on the Security of Rural Environments (Case Study: Villages of Kerman County)

In today's world, security is considered as the most important factor in the formulation of sustainable tourism development strategies, and is directly related to it. In a way, tourism security can lead to the development of the local economy, increase employment and income levels of indigenous communities, especially in rural areas. The purpose of this study; Assessing the impact of religious tourism on the security of rural environments is in the form of three factors of communication, social and environmental security. The unit of analysis in this study is the village and its statistical population consists of two groups of host community (101 people) and experts (24 people). Therefore, it has been done through a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity and reliability have also been confirmed. MABAC and FAHP methods have been used for analysis, weighting and ranking of criteria. The results show that the average score of the impact of religious tourism on local community security at the level of 99% was significant. On the other hand, the security dimension with a weight value of 0.524 and the environmental dimension with a weight value of 0.187 have the highest and lowest importance, respectively. Based on the results of ranking ten villages with high potential for religious tourism, Langar and Hojjatabad villages have the highest and lowest ranks in terms of insecurity, respectively.Keywords: Religious Tourism, Rural Tourism, Tourism Security, MABAC and FAHP Methods.