A Survey on Potentials of Rural Tourism in Razavi Khorasan Province of Iran

   In a rural environment, rural tourism has some consequences which bring about some direct and indirect effects on the rural societies and local inhabitants. Most consequences of the rural tourism are represented in the rural economy mainly dependent on land. Concerning the rural tourism, Razavi Khorasan province of Iran is endowed with different varieties of inhabited villages. This distinctive situation results from the environmental, economic and social-cultural factors. All these factors have caused the province to enjoy a high potentiality in the field of tourism. According to a field study, 59 villages of this kind have been recognized throughout the province. In this paper, these villages were studied with respect to their tourism attractions and also as a market to meet demands for the rural tourism; besides, the typology of the rural tourism was identified and considering the indices, its potentials in the region were verified within an MS-SWOT framework. Study results showed that the area enjoyed maximum strengths as well as maximum weaknesses, indicating a maximum-maximum status. This index represents the tourism potentials in relevance to the subject of attraction in the frame of maximum strengths and weaknesses resulted from the situation of the regional structure. Nevertheless, the external factors have not yet had enough effects on the studied area.