Assessing Investment Challenges in Rural Areas with Emphasis on Tourism: Case Study Tourism Target Villages in Alamut District of Qazvin county

Introduction
Funding is one of the most important obstacles to achieving economic diversity and socio-economic development of rural areas through tourism activities. Thus, due to the characteristics of rural tourism such as low return on investment in rural tourism due to small and scattered activities, seasonal activities and limited ability of local investment; Weakness of skills and marketing of rural individual tourism enterprises as a prerequisite for success in economic activities; And the inability of the rural tourism services to meet the needs of tourists, especially the management of attractions, accommodation and welfare facilities, etc. Investment in it is faced with several limitations. Thus, investing in tourism, especially in human resource development and capacity development for rural tourism, is an innovation that stimulates local development. Similarly, having the capacity to manage a destination and allocate financial capital to participate in physical and infrastructure investment projects such as public and private transportation, construction attractions, and the like provides certain competitive advantages for a region. A review of the research literature shows that the most important challenges of investing in rural tourism can be summarized in the following four categories. 1- Diversity of government institutions in charge of tourism and rural development, 2- Low tendency of the private sector due to the seasonality of most tourism activities, 3- Inadequate public infrastructure in rural areas 4- Inadequate performance of local managers and local institutions.
Methodology
The present research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of method. So that, in addition to illustrating what it is, it explains the reasons for how it is and why the situation of the problem and its dimensions. In order to collect the required data after conducting a theoretical study and extracting indicators and items, a questionnaire (based on the use of a 5-point Likert scale) and direct observation have been used. Experts such as university faculty members and experts of the Cultural Heritage Organization have been used to assess the validity of the items. The time domain of the research is 2020. One-sample t-test and factor analysis were used to analyze the questionnaire data. The geographical area of the research includes Alamut section in Qazvin city. The statistical population of this study is the target villages of tourism in Alamut district in the north of Qazvin province. At the village analysis level, the counting method has been used to collect data and information. The statistical population of the study is households living in 8 villages targeted for tourism in Alamut district, which according to the population and housing census (2016) amounted to 918 households, with the assumption of p and q (0.5), 271 items were selected as a sample.
Findings
The results of the analysis show that economic challenges with a numerical average (4.72) and political-institutional challenges with a numerical average (4.44) are the most important challenges in terms of investing in tourism activities in the tourist villages of Alamut. So that issues such as financing tourism activities, high risk of tourism activities, lack of business activities and marketing are the most important economic challenges affecting investment in tourism activities in the villages studied. Also, the analysis of effective factors in rural tourism investment with respect to the amount of KMO coefficient to (0.743) shows that the political weakness and inability of local officials with (17.25) percent of poor information and infrastructure services (12.15) as the most important barriers to investing in rural tourism in the Alamut section of Qazvin. On the other hand, the factor of high risk of tourism activities with (9.41) percent and inability to finance tourism with (7.91) percent are in second place. Therefore, it can be said that (46.71) percent of the challenges of investing in tourism are directly related to political and economic issues.
Discussion and Conclusion
In the present study, according to the literature review, challenges and barriers to investing in rural tourism are classified into the following 4 groups: a- Political and institutional challenges; Economic; Social and cultural and infrastructural challenges. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between the four components. Thus, from the respondents' point of view, the most important challenges of investing in rural tourism in Alamut have been as follows: a- Economic; Social and cultural in the region; Weakness of infrastructure services in the region; And political and institutional failure. On the other hand, the results of factor analysis showed that low investment in rural tourism in the study area is directly related to political and economic issues.