Evaluating Local Community Attitudes towards the Effects of Mass Tourism (Case Study: Boyer-Ahmad County)

Purpose- Over the past few decades, tourism has played an important role in revitalizing the nature, creating employment and income, preserving natural, historical and cultural heritage, and ultimately sustainable development by utilizing the natural and cultural capacities of the region. Since tourism has different economic, social, cultural, and environmental impacts on host communities, awareness of the attitude of the host community as a tourism product provider is of great importance. The main objective of the study is to investigate the local residents' attitude toward mass tourism effects in Boyer-Ahmad County. Design/methodology/approach- The present study is descriptive-analytical in nature. It takes an empirical approach. The research instrument was a questionnaire with ۸۲ items that gathered the information needed for the research. The sample size was calculated to be ۱۹۵ individuals using PASS software at ۹۵% of confidence level. One-sample t-test, ANOVA, Friedman, and Scheffe post-hoc tests were used to analyze and respond to research hypotheses in SPSS software. Finding- The results of t-test considering the significance level of the test and the high and low levels of confidence indicated the impact of tourism in the environmental, economic, social, and fundamental dimensions, while the results of ANOVA test showed that the average of each dimension was different. The results of Friedman test with a significant level of ۰.۰۰ have assigned the highest rank to the fundamental dimension.