Preipheral Urban Spaces Development

Preipheral Urban Spaces Development

Analysis of tourists' satisfaction with ecotourism eco-lodges in the peri-urban areas of Varamin county

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Ahmad Zanganeh 1
Hamid Reza Talkhabi 2
Mahdi Mahabadi Pour 3
1 Associate Professor, Department of Human Geography, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.
2 Ph.D. Department of Human Geography, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.
3 Master's student, Department of Human Geography, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.
10.22034/jpusd.2024.440473.1300
Abstract
Introduction

According to the Statistics Center of Iran's domestic tourism in 1400, about 55 million Iranians, equivalent to 18 million and 513 thousand 449 households, did not travel in 1400, and of a total of 26.301 thousand 670 Iranian households, only 7 million and 800 thousand households, equivalent to about 30 percent of households, had at least one trip. According to the statistics of the centers of Tehran and Varamin city in 1400, more than 12 percent of tourists entered the ecotourism resorts. According to the mentioned cases and in addition to the restrictions of Tehran province and due to its special location which is the capital of the country, many people due to traffic and other conditions cannot get out of the city of Tehran, and creating suitable conditions for ecolodges in the surrounding cities of Tehran, can overcome this defect to a great extent. Therefore, Varamin County has villages that have a number of ecolodges. Such as villages, Khave (Kaj and Naneh Agha), Castle Khajeh village (mansion residence), Kavir Abad village (Amome Reza's residence), Amin Abad village (residence of Mohammad Hossein Khan), but due to the old villages with ecotourism residence in Varamin, certain conditions prevail. Therefore, most villages do not have the necessary quality and cause tourists who enter the ecolodge houses practically cannot have that quality in these residences. For example, the lack of parking space, internet, and the lack of familiarity of indigenous people with tourists. Considering this issue, analyzing the attitude of tourists towards accommodation in ecolodges and the services provided to them, can be an effective way to improve the quality of such accommodations. Therefore، according to what is mentioned about the effects of ecolodges and the necessity of development and the willingness of tourists to stay in these residences. The present study was not merely to investigate and identify the satisfaction of tourists towards accommodation in ecolodges or Ecolodges, and the more important issue that has involved the researchers of this research is the deficiencies in the tourism sector of the villages of Varamin, of which ecolodges are an important part of it.

Methodology

The present study is applied in terms of purpose and based on the descriptive-analytic nature and in terms of the method of conducting survey. The method of data collection was in two ways: library and field. In the library method, Elsevier, Taylor and Francis, Meguiran and Iran Doc, the Statistical Organization and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism have been used. In the field method, the main tool is a questionnaire that in this paper a researcher-made questionnaire has been used. Based on the conceptual model of research, independent variables include physical and physical quality of residences, quality of services, location and availability of residences, and education and experience in residences. And the dependent variable of research is the attitude and willingness of tourists to stay in ecolodges. The statistical population of this study is tourists who stayed in Varamin city Ecolodges. Since there are no official statistics of these tourists, the statistical population is unclear, and to determine the sample size, Cochran's formula was used to determine the uncertain population with a confidence level of 95%, the number of estimated samples was considered 160 and questionnaires were randomly assigned among tourists. The criterion of selection were four tourist target villages which were selected due to the existence of ecotourism accommodation within the target villages. Validity of the questionnaire was assessed by experts and reliability was assessed by Cronbach's alpha test. Data were analyzed by SPSS software and descriptive statistical methods such as mean of answers, one-sample t-test, Friedman test and factor analysis were used.

Results and discussion

Factor analysis has been used in order to categorize the factors affecting the analysis of tourists' attitude towards accommodation in the rural ecotourism residences of Varamin city. The result of Bartlett's test is (224 / 522) which is significant at the error level of less than 0.04 and shows that the correlation matrix between the items is not the same and the same matrix and on the one hand there is a high correlation between the items within each factor and on the other hand No correlation can be observed between some items and other factors. In this research, rotation and remax have been used to obtain significant factors. Therefore, ten factors can be made from the total of 20 items. These 10 factors explain 60.255% of the total variance of 20 items.

Conclusion

The obtained results about the physical status of the residences indicate a positive attitude of tourists towards ecolodges. Regarding the location and accessibility component، the results showed that the attitude of tourists towards the location of tourists was positive with an average of (3.16). Also، the results of Friedman test showed that being away from the noise of the city was an important feature which with a score of (3.37) was the first priority of tourists in this regard. This is true of the world and the Gospel of Revelation. The results of the study showed that tourists generally had no positive attitude toward providing services in ecolodges and the average obtained (2.45) of the total response median was less than the median of the total responses. Another component of this study was education and experience, which showed that tourists had a positive attitude toward acquiring education, learning and experience in such accommodations and Friedman test results showed that the possibility of direct experience of the local people's lifestyle with an average of 3.44 had the highest score. The overall results of the study showed that the tourism resort sector is not in a good position in terms of the quality of services, so it is necessary to monitor these residences and help to improve the quality of services in these residences by providing financial assistance and low interest loans.
Keywords
Ecotourism residence
Attitude
Varamin County
Rural Areas

Subjects

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Preipheral Urban Spaces Development
Volume 6, Issue 3 - Serial Number 13
Autumn
Autumn 2024
Pages 145-166