Introduction
Culinary tourism may have many economic benefits for rural areas. Many practitioners consider this type of tourism as a tool for rural development that can stimulate the local economy and support existing jobs and create new jobs in these areas. Food tourism events have recently become a major means for economic development in villages and local areas. The question of the study is to what extent culinary tourism has been able to be effective in maintaining economic growth and development in the rural areas particularly the north regions of the country and foster the survival and stability of the villages.
Methodology
The present research is applied in terms of purpose and a mix method (qualitative-quantitative) study in terms of data collection. The qualitative part consists of a content analysis and the quantitative part is descriptive-exploratory. The method of data collection is a desk research and a field study using semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire. The research population is also divided into qualitative and quantitative. The research community for the qualitative part comprises the experts of the Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organization, as well as professors on rural planning and development in Mazandaran Province. The characteristics of them were high experience as a manager, knowledge of the research topic, and they were selected in a purposeful and snowball method, so 16 people were selected to achieve a saturation. The statistical population for quantitative part was a limited and included 375 restaurateurs, accommodation owners, hotel owners and experts of the Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organization. 182 of them were randomly selected using the Cochran's formula. Coding was the data analysis tool for qualitative part and Delphi technique was used to design the model in quantitative part. Finally, the model was obtained using the structural equation modeling and PLS Smart software.
Discussion and conclusion
In many countries, food tourism is closely in consistence with agricultural policies and is often deemed as a means to support a sustainable rural economy. When it comes to sustainability in rural development, economic growth and poverty alleviation for villagers along with optimizing the social structure of their communities, which is obtained by equitable distribution of services and promoting sustainable livelihoods. Non-agricultural activity diversification in rural areas accelerates the process of sustainable development, not only economically but also culturally and socially. Since Mazandaran Province is popular tourist destinations in Iran, it has the capability to utilize food as a tourism axis in this province. The present study demonstrates that for the culinary tourism in the studied area, the three categories of marketing, services and planning should be attended. This will result to sustainable income, economic growth and sustainable employment, and ultimately to foster a sustainable economy. All indicators for the model of culinary tourism on sustainable rural economy of Mazandaran were confirmed. These findings show that the aspects of food tourism, sustainable income, economic growth and sustainable employment have been able to form a model for analyzing food tourism in a sustainable rural economy. In conclusion, the aspects of the model and the underling hypothesis were validated.
