The Role of Entrepreneurial Activities in Tourism Development in Ilam City

Tourism is a part of economy of the country that is mostly related to the entrepreneurial activities. The present study aims at investigating the role of entrepreneurial activities in tourism development in Ilam City. The method of the current study is a descriptive-correlation design. The statistical population of the current study includes the managers and experts working in labor and social welfare organization, cultural heritage organization, handicrafts and tourism, governorate office, technical and vocational education center of province and the Association of Entrepreneurs of Ilam Province, of which 195 people were selected by stratified random method. The data collection measure is a questionnaire whose validity has been confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis and its reliability is calculated to be 0.91 using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. The data analysis was performed using confirmatory factor analysis and multiple regression in SPSS software. The results from testing the hypotheses of the study show that there is a relationship between the variables of innovativeness, risk-taking, autonomy, aggressive competition and tourism development in Ilam City. There is a multiple correlation coefficient of (MR=0/68) between predicting variables and tourism development in Ilam City. Therefore, there is a positive and significant relationship between entrepreneurial activities and the tourism development in Ilam City.