Religious tourism is one of the oldest forms of tourism that has been considered by human beings which caused changes in the quality of life and social capital of the host society through changes between their interactions. This phenomenon is more obvious in third world countries’ rural areas that are experiencing their early stages of tourism development. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of religious tourism on quality of life and social capital of rural households in Bardi village, Dehloran County. This is an applied research, which benefits from descriptive and analytical method. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire, interviews, observation and desk research while data analysis was done through descriptive and inferential statistics method (Friedman and Wilcoxon tests). The study population was 165 households and 857 people of Bardy village according to 2011 census. Accordingly 102 households were chosen as sample size based on Cochran formula. Research findings show that religious tourism has affected and improved their quality of life in all aspects, including social, environmental (higher than average) and economical, physical (on average), also research findings regarding the social capital component shows that, after the expansion of religious tourism, social participation, social networks and social cohesion has improved, but the aspect of social trust has been reduced dramatically.
Manuscript profile
