Does Ecotourism Development Promote Rural Women’s Empowerment?

Today, the tourism industry is of great interest in the world in a sustainable development strategy. In developing countries with an extremely high rural population, such as Iran, ecotourism is considered as a potential for economic growth. Rural women, as a group with multi-functional roles in the rural household economy, can be considered the leading players in the development of ecotourism. This; the article is prepared as a review. To; find related documents, ۱۲,۴۰۰ articles were found using Google Scholar and the keywords "Ecotourism" and "entrepreneurship." Then, by adding the word "rural women," the number of articles decreased to ۳۸۴. Then the title and abstract of the articles were examined and those related to this research were selected. Moreover, finally, the studies and investigations conducted to answer the following three questions: What is Ecotourism? Is there a connection between ecotourism and empowerment? Can Ecotourism play a role in empowering rural women? Finally, some recommendations have been presented based on the findings.

Keywords:

Ecotourism , empowerment , entrepreneurship , rural women