This study aims to clarify how ecolodge entrepreneurship evolves from idea formation to ecolodge establishment in emerging markets. The related process affects authentic ecolodge development. The research employed grounded theory to explore this process and its implications to examine for the first time how individuals enter the ecolodge industry in an emerging market. The interaction of four constructs (namely drivers, motives, context, and idea sources) explains the costs and benefits that ecolodge entrepreneurs perceive in entering this industry. Moreover, we develop a new typology of tourism entrepreneurs in an ecolodge context based on the combined approach. Entrepreneurs are classified into three segments, including ecolodge lovers, cool job seekers, and young detached entrepreneurs. Although the ecolodge lovers were most in line with the principles of sustainable tourism and most likely to set up authentic ecolodges, most of the entrepreneurs belonged to the other two clusters. The explored process and typology highlight coordinated action in the development of ecolodges.

Recently, the demand for high-quality land use/land cover (LULC) information for near-real-time crop type mapping, in particular for multi-relief landscapes, has increased. While the LULC classes are inherently imbalanced, the statistics generally overestimate the majority classes and underestimate the minority ones. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the classes of the 10 m European Satellite Agency (ESA) WorldCover 2020 land use/land cover product with the support of the Google Earth Engine (GEE) in the Honam sub-basin, south-west Iran, using the LACOVAL (validation tool for regional-scale land cover and land cover change) online platform. The effect of imbalanced ground truth has also been explored. Four sampling schemes were employed on a total of 720 collected ground truth points over approximately 14,100 ha. The grassland and cropland totally canopied 94% of the study area, while barren land, shrubland, trees and built-up covered the rest. The results of the validation accuracy showed that the equalized sampling scheme was more realistically successful than the others in terms of roughly the same overall accuracy (91.6%), mean user’s accuracy (91.6%), mean producers’ accuracy (91.9%), mean partial portmanteau (91.9%) and kappa (0.9). The product was statistically improved to 93.5% ± 0.04 by the assembling approach and segmented with the help of supplementary datasets and visual interpretation. The findings confirmed that, in mapping LULC, data of classes should be balanced before accuracy assessment. It is concluded that the product is a reliable dataset for environmental modeling at the regional scale but needs some modifications for barren land and grassland classes in mountainous semi-arid regions of the globe.

Tourism development in rural areas is one of the most important support strategies for farm diversification and rural development. In Iran, the industry has gained increasing attention in recent years, but less attention has been paid to rural tourism market segmentation to identify homogeneous groups of tourists. Therefore, this study aimed at understanding the segmentation of this market by researching the motives of tourists travel to the villages of Maragheh County in Iran, which has extraordinarily beautiful gardens and very attractive scenery. The sample size of this study was 200 tourists selected by the convenience sampling method. Data were collected through structured questionnaires. A factor-clustering method determined five distinct segments: ‘self-actualized married women’, ‘married nostalgic men’, ‘young learning and nutrition-sensitive tourists’ and ‘energetic and contact in nature young tourists’. Understanding these segments will provide valuable information for rural tourism tour operators and destination management organizations.

Challenges and solutions for improving livelihoods of iranian semi-nomads. - Volume II - Number 4 , sj rural development