Modeling the improvement of the livelihoods of local communities in Iran through the development of local food tourism

Today, experiencing authentic rural flavors has become one of the most important trends in tourism. Beyond familiarizing travelers with local culture and traditions, food tourism in villages contributes to strengthening the micro-economy, supporting farmers, and sustaining family businesses. Local foods also play a significant role in destination branding and attracting tourists—a capacity that has been underexplored in many studies.

The primary goal of this study was to identify the factors influencing domestic tourists’ willingness to consume local food. To achieve this, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was adopted as the theoretical framework, with two additional variables incorporated: risk perception (RP) and benefit perception (BP). This innovative extension, rarely applied in food tourism research, represents the study’s main contribution to addressing existing gaps in the literature.

The research was conducted through a questionnaire survey and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The statistical population consisted of tourists visiting rural areas of Shushtar County in southwest Iran, with a sample of 400 participants selected based on the Krejcie and Morgan table. Findings revealed that the original TPB model explained 56.6% of the variance in tourists’ willingness to consume local food, with all variables—attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms—exerting significant effects.

More importantly, the inclusion of RP and BP increased the model’s explanatory power by 14.4%. These results demonstrate that integrating TPB with risk and benefit perceptions provides a more comprehensive framework for understanding tourist behavior. This enriched model can serve as a foundation for developing effective marketing strategies and destination branding initiatives in rural tourism.

This research did not receive any organizational support. Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, Iran Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE), Eberswalde, Germany, Germany Advanced System Analysis, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF e. V), Müncheberg, Germany, Germany Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication, College of Agricultural and Environmental, Athens, USA The authors declare no competing interests.

At the time of this study, the Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan did not have a university-level Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (IRB) responsible for reviewing research involving human participants. Therefore, no formal university-level IRB approval or reference number was issued for this study. Nevertheless, academic and ethical considerations for research involving human participants were routinely reviewed at the departmental level as part of the academic evaluation of postgraduate research projects.