Development of a Model for Rural Tourism Supply Chain Management: A Case Study of Touristic Villages of Central Mazandaran, Iran

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a model for tourism supply chain management in the mountainous forest villages of central Mazandaran. In this research, rural tourism supply chain management processes were detected through a systematic review and the Delphi method. To analyze the data and to build a model, ISM and Micmac methods were employed. The final model shows that knowledge management is the most basic process in the tourism supply chain in the region. This is owing to the great influence of this process and the lack of its strong dependence on other processes. Information management processes, risk, market, service performance, demand, capacity, and customer relationship have a linking role in this model. These parameters have a great influence and a strong dependence on the other parameters of the chain. Financial management is the most dependent process in the tourism chain of the region with a low influence but a high dependence on the other processes. Order management is an autonomous process in the tourism chain of the studied region. Indeed, it has both a low influence and a low dependence on the other processes of the chain.