Designing a Rural Tourism Marketing Model based on Participatory Geographic Information System (case study: Karaik and Kokhdan villages, Dena city, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmed province)

Designing Rural Tourism Marketing Model based on Participatory Geographic Information System (case study: Karaik and Kokhdan villages, Dena city, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmed province)

Introduction
In today's world, most of the city dwellers due to pollution, crowding and stressful conditions of urban life; become interested in spending vacations in pristine areas, walking in wildlife and enjoying rural life. This issue has created the development opportunity for rural places with natural attractions, pristine wildlife and special cultural traditions. However, there are various problems in the tourism infrastructure, management, marketing structures in the rural areas. Currently, web-based information is one of the most influential factors in marketing tourism products. Moreover, new marketing method with collaborative approach has created a significant change in the rural tourism development and planning methods. Participatory geographic Information System increases people's participation in the policy-making process and also promotes the goals of non-governmental organizations, people's groups and local organizations through geographic information systems. Collaborative geographic data is based on the concept that native people using their senses can gather information about their environment in more detail, more accurately and intelligently considering different conditions. Although recent developments in the field of information and communication technology and geographic information systems have affected tourism studies, however, information technology studies for rural tourism have been limited to online tourism services or online travel agency websites. In this regard, there has been no attention to the data location in rural tourism marketing. Therefore, current research aims to solve the problems and issues for the development of rural tourism through designing marketing model with a participatory geographic information system. According to the above, this research seeks to answer this question: What is the appropriate model of rural tourism marketing with the use of participatory geographic information system in the selected villages?
Methodology
For this purpose, a qualitative research method based on Strauss and Corbin (2015) Grouded Theory was used to analyze the data. Data collection was done using in-depth and semi-structured interviews, collaborative meetings, note-taking and observation. A total of 28 people were selected among local experts, village managers, business owners and employees of Dena National Park using purposeful, snowball and theoretical sampling. In order to reach the final model and theory, data analysis were done in five stages of open coding identifying concepts, developing concepts in term of their properties and dimensions, analyzing data for context, bringing process into the analysis, integrating categories.
Results
As a result first two steps of the analysis, 122 basic concepts, and 24 subcategories 9 main categories were created. In the next step, paradigm model were obtained based on causal conditions (characteristics of the technology and facilitation of participation), context (tourism supply and attractiveness of the destination), intervening conditions (technological challenges and managerial and structural aspects), strategies (developing a participatory spatial system, policy making requirements) and results (destination tourism development).
Discussion
The main concern of the research was identified as the challenges of management and technology. As a result, the participants proposed strategies and solutions to solve the concerns. In order to solve the main issues (technological management challenges) of the rural tourism marketing based on a participatory geographic information system, strategies such as the development of a participatory spatial marketing system, and social empowerment were obtained. Finally, competitive advantage, more tourism staying were defined as consequences of the implementation of strategies.
Conclusion
By studying and reviewing the studies conducted in the field of rural tourism marketing, it can be say that some researches have focused on prioritizing the mixed components of marketing in rural areas, Mehdi Hossam et al (2016) Sheikhi and Pazki 2016). Other researches have determined the factors affecting rural tourism marketing by providing a qualitative model and have put forward suggestions to solve them. The factor that has distinguished the present research from others is the introduction of a new aspect of rural areas marketing with participatory geographic information system. So that, local community and every person are able to produce spatial data and pin the tourism products and unique features of their destination on the map. On the other hand, tourists who intend to visit the destination can easily obtain to a large amount of tourism data they need in an integrated participatory web platform and saving their time. The innovation of this research can be seen in the model presented for selected villages. Although the use of information and communication technology in tourism marketing for cities has become common nowadays, nevertheless, the use of participatory geographic information system in the field of rural tourism marketing is very limited. Therefore, until now, there has been no research on the topic of presenting a rural tourism marketing model with participatory geographic information system. This model can bring various benefits including the participation of local people and tourists as data production users. Pin the experience of tourists in map, creating a large database for managing and planning the destination, providing tourists with access to different levels of tourism information in an integrated manner and ease of decision-making in choosing services. The output of this research can be proposed as implementation of the web platform of such a system in the future studies.