Tourism planning
Ali Movahed; Asghar Tahmasbi; Nasrein Gholamali Fard
Abstract
Spiritual experience is one of the growing potentials and attractions in many tourist destinations, and involves a wide range of religious and secular tourists. This paper aims to analyze the motives and factors affecting the spiritual experiences of foreign female tourists in Iran. The required data ...
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Spiritual experience is one of the growing potentials and attractions in many tourist destinations, and involves a wide range of religious and secular tourists. This paper aims to analyze the motives and factors affecting the spiritual experiences of foreign female tourists in Iran. The required data were collected using 383 questionnaires from foreign female tourists in the hotels where they stayed, or at airports on their way to their country. Then the data were analyzed by applying correlation test and multi-linear regression analysis. The results of study show that, being in harmony with the nature is the most important motive for foreign female tourists traveling to Iran. Among the characteristics of tourist destinations, natural geography, history and culture lie as the most important factors affecting the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists visiting Iran.IntroductionReligion and spirituality have been the most important motives of tourists for traveling in the old time. There is a common agreement on the proximity of these two concepts but spirituality and religion don’t necessarily cover each other. The spirituality concept has become much wider and includes issues including health, social relationships, happiness, vivacity, self-esteem, calmness, sublimity and God. Men and women are different in spiritual aspects. According to some psychologists, women are more religious than men, and have more tendency to spirituality and religious activities (Rich, 2012 Hajizadeh-Meimndi, Ebrahimi-Sadrabadi, 1389). Also, psychologists believe that, tendency to religious affairs is more in women due to the harmony and consistency of spiritual and religious views with women’s souls. Regarding the differences in men’s and women’s traveling and the differences in their incentives, Bond (1997) states that the traveling of alone women beyond their country borders has recently increased significantly. Women tend to take journeys to get experiences and communicational skills as well as to attain awareness and confidence. The statistics show a significant increase in the number of women’s traveling. Therefore, the activists of tourism industry pay special attention to the women’s sector in the market and the economy of travel and tourism. Women are considered as one of the new markets in tourism industry, and understanding their spiritual experiences became a main priority. Female tourists look for different destinations to get the experiences and because of the diversity of expectation form spiritual experience, the need for various destinations to satisfy the different groups of spiritual tourists is felt more than ever. Iran can be a special destination for female tourists, due to its geographical, cultural and historic situation. Climatic diversity and natural landscapes shaped by climates, heights, plains, seas and coastal areas, deserts in addition to historic, cultural and religious attractions and the existence of different ethnic groups with their own special customs and ceremonies, provide very diverse and unique conditions for women’s spiritual experiences in Iran.However, existing knowledge on spiritual experiences of foreign female tourists in Iran and its determining factors are very limited.Research MethodologyThis study is a descriptive-exploratory research and the statistical society is the foreign female tourists in Iran and the measuring instrument is questionnaire, of which 383 copies have been distributed among and completed by foreign female tourists, using convenience sampling. The data have been analyzed by SPSS software. Descriptive statistics indices such as frequency and percentage have been applied to search and analyze the information related to general characteristics of the respondents. Correlation tests and multi-linear regression analysis have also been used in the inferential statistics part.Research FindingsThe findings of this study show that three aspects of demographics, travel motives and the destination characteristics, predict 85 percent of the variance of the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists in Iran.The characteristics of Iran as a tourist destination with beta of 0.355 had the highest effects on the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists. In this study the Crouch and Ritchie model of destination competitiveness was used to determine the tourist destination characteristics. Therefore, the effects of 8 variables including history and culture of the natural geography, infrastructure, costs, security, hospitality, events and situation on the tourists’ spiritual experiences were examined using the multi-linear regression analysis. The results show that the destination characteristics predict 94 percent of the variance of the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists in Iran. Among the destination characteristics, a) factors of history and culture, b) natural geography, c) infrastructure, d) costs, e) security, f) hospitality, g) events and h) situation, in order, had the highest effects on the quality of the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists in Iran.ConclusionBased on Crouch model, the destination characteristics are among important factors in tourists’ choice for different purposes. According to the results of this research, foreign female tourists have considered the features of their destination as the most effective factor in their spiritual experiences. Fox’s research (1996) on the women participating in spiritual experiences in pristine places indicated that the nature is seen as a powerful, healing and spiritual element. Furthermore, women on journeys have energy more similar to the nature and can get more spiritual awareness. As discussed above, spiritual tourism for women could play very important role as a novel strategy for tourism marketing in programming macro-tourism in Iran and branding women’s spiritual tourism can be conducted for this valuable guideline.Particularly in advertising via internet and TV programs, Iran should introduce itself as a new destination for female spiritual tourists. Providing necessary facilities and infrastructures and designing trip packages for female spiritual tourists are from necessary steps toward female spiritual tourism. In this research we offered a general framework to examine female spiritual experiences and examined the impact of three main factors including: the destination characteristics, travel motives and the tourists’ demographic features. The destination characteristics in the female tourists’ view, had very significant role in their spiritual experiences. Furthermore, harmony with nature was found as the most important motive to have the spiritual experience in Iran.In the future studies one may examine the effects of different environments including the nature or religious places or even historical buildings to discover the effects of places on spiritual experiences. Also, the effects of each of these aspects and indices on spiritual experiences for two groups of men and women may be assessed and compared separately.
Ali asghar Mobasheri; Fatemeh Shekari; Moslem Bagheri; Zahra Moaven; Mehrdad Kiani
Abstract
Introduction
Ecotourism can serve as one of the effective strategies for economic, social, and environmental development of destinations. Nowadays, many policies aim to develop ecotourism and utilize its benefits, especially in the developing countries with rich natural resources. Iran is one of the ...
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Introduction
Ecotourism can serve as one of the effective strategies for economic, social, and environmental development of destinations. Nowadays, many policies aim to develop ecotourism and utilize its benefits, especially in the developing countries with rich natural resources. Iran is one of the countries with considerable potential for ecotourism development. However, there is no consistent plan to use the county’s potentialities in this respect. It is thus necessary to take serious measures to develop ecotourism and utilize Iran’s natural resources optimally. This study aims to propose a model of ecotourism development in Iran.
Materials and Methods
The present study relies on a mixed methods research design. Concerning the qualitative aspect, practitioners and experts were interviewed to extract the elements of the model. Then the data was analyzed through the method of thematic analysis. In the quantitative part, the dimensions and strategies were arranged into a questionnaire and were ranked by the tourism experts in Iran. Finally, the method of hesitant fuzzy sets was employed to analyze the data.
Results and Discussion
According to the results, the most important ecotourism development dimensions in Iran can be enumerated in order of importance as follows: management, infrastructure development, marketing and training, and human resource development. Moreover, the key ecotourism development strategies, in order of importance, are as follows: carrying out marketing activities to increase the market share of ecotourism, diversifying Iran’s ecotourism products, improving the access roads to tourism villages, and increasing the destination’s resilience to natural disasters.
Conclusion
Exploring the underlying conditions in Iran, this study proposed a model of ecotourism development in Iran as a potential destination for ecotourism. The findings can offer practical and scientific guidelines to managers and policymakers who seek to develop ecotourism in Iran.
Arashk Masaeli; Naser rezaei; Khabat Derafshi; Mehdi Basakha
Abstract
IntroductionMany industries with predetermined plans have been completely suffered losses from the Covid-19 pandemic since March 2020, when the World Health Organization recognized it. The tourism industry can be considered one of the growing sectors damaged very quickly. Due to the prolongation of the ...
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IntroductionMany industries with predetermined plans have been completely suffered losses from the Covid-19 pandemic since March 2020, when the World Health Organization recognized it. The tourism industry can be considered one of the growing sectors damaged very quickly. Due to the prolongation of the Covid-19 pandemic, different aspects of the tourism industry and its degree of vulnerability are identified. Tourism-related businesses, including the hotel industry, food industry, transportation, handicrafts, and other related activities, have suffered the most during this period.Simultaneously with the negative effects of the corona disease on the economy and employment, the effects of the corona on tourism became more apparent. Still, due to the continuity of the corona and the need for rehabilitation during the corona and post-corona era, the need for more protocols and health guidelines is felt. Many countries have made reforms in this regard to continue their tourism industry at the same time as the pandemic.The important point is that researchers in this field should pay attention to the direct effects of corona on the tourism industry and its effects on related industries.Materials and MethodsAs it turns out, tourists spend money to buy goods and services at destinations. Some are paid directly for accommodation, food centres, restaurants, retail shopping, transportation, and related entertainment. Since it is done in the tourism industry and has revenues for these industries, it is called the "direct effects" of tourism on the economy. Due to the increasing demand for tourism products, players in the tourism and related industries are encouraged to increase the supply of products. Therefore, hiring new labourers and producing more goods from domestic producers occurs to meet the demand for tourism, which is called "indirect effects".Increasing the employment of the labour force increases the total income of the residents of the tourist area that part of it is allocated to savings and part to the purchase goods and services for residents. The purchase of more goods and services by the surplus income creates additional demand and leads to more production and more employment, which is called the "induction effects". In general, "indirect effects" and "induction effects" constitute "secondary effects".The inbound tourists to Iran in the first six months of 1399 have decreased by almost 96%, affecting Gross Domestic Product, employment, imports, and income distribution. The effects of this reduction on employment in the country, given the high unemployment rate of 10 percent is important so that policymakers can create short-term and long-term packages as much as possible to prevent the increase in unemployment in the country. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the employment of Iran's tourism sector using the labour force statistics of the year 1398 and the updated input-output table of the year 1390.Discussion and ResultsAs stated, of the approximately 24 million 273 thousand people employed in Iran (according to the labour force census), 4,575,000 people are employed in tourism-related activities.As can be seen, there is a 1.88 percent decrease in employment and an increase in unemployment, of which 1.23 percent is a direct effect of the reduction in tourist arrivals, about 0.64 percent is based on the inter-sectorial relations of different sectors related to tourism, and 0.01 percent is due to induced demand.The results extracted from the calculation of the direct, indirect, and induced effects show that 456,000 out of 4,575,000 people working in the 13 sectors related to the tourism industry have lost their jobs (299 thousand direct effects and 257 thousand indirect effects).ConclusionsThe experience of tourist countries in the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that although the arrival of the disease has severely damaged these countries, they have somehow maintained their tourism activities by creating protocols and instructions, including performing PCR tests before 72 hours of flight time, the separation of tourists and citizens of the country by creating quarantine courses, and allocation of quarantine places for suspected people.Eventually, wholesale and retail services, transportation support and assistance services, passenger road transport, food and beverage neighbourhood services, and public accommodation have the most indirect negative impacts due to their close relationship with other industries.
Faranak Ranjbar Motalegh; Reza Vaezi; Mahmood Ziaee; Davoud Hoseinpour
Abstract
Policy agenda setting significantly affects tourism policies, describing which tourism issues make onto public policy agenda. Given the considerable gap in studying this stage, this paper seeks to explore Iran’s public policy agenda between 2013 and 2019 focusing on different types of tourism issues. ...
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Policy agenda setting significantly affects tourism policies, describing which tourism issues make onto public policy agenda. Given the considerable gap in studying this stage, this paper seeks to explore Iran’s public policy agenda between 2013 and 2019 focusing on different types of tourism issues. Conducting an archival study, data related to agenda indicators drawn from three institutional venues in Iran including legislative-led, executive-led and budget indicators. The results of qualitative content analysis of official documents showed that relatively a few numbers of the issues reached the agenda including those related to tourism management, developing tourism product, and enacting relevant rules and regulations. However, tourism marketing and tourism information management issues were less considered in the agenda setting process. It is argued that failure in getting different types of the issues on to the agenda could result in gaps in subsequent tourism policies, affecting tourism development.IntroductionConsidering Tourism as one of the fastest growing economic sectors, it is intorduced as an effective tool for economic development in Iran. Pursuing this goal, tourism policies play a vital role, since they determine the direction or course of action to develop tourism(Goeldner & Ritchie, 2009). However, the low contribution of tourism industry to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Iran (Bahmani & Namamian, 2021; Farzin, Abbaspoor, Ashrafi & Zargham Boroojeni, 2020) indicates that Iran’s tourism policies fail in pursuing their intended goals(Karoubi, Yavari Gohar, Zarea & Abbasi, 2020). Regardless of the quality of tourism policy, it is the successful transmission of tourism issues to the public policy agenda that assures policy formation in addressing these issues. In this regard, expolring agenda setting stage in public policy making could contribute to a better understanding of tourism policy making. Given the considerable gap in studying agenda setting, this paper seeks to explore Iran’s public policy agenda focusing on different types of tourism issues.Materials and MethodsThis study considers the status of different types of tourism issues on Iran’s public policy agenda over years between 2013 and 2019. Conducting an archival study, data drawn from three institutional venues in Iran including legislative-led, executive-led and budget indicators, looking for tourism related keywords in both title and context of the ofiicial documents. Qualitattive content analysis was used as the main method in two coding circles: open and axial coding. The emergent categories represent the main groups of the issues which made it onto the agenda.Discussion and ResultsThe relative share of tourism issues on the agenda was calculated through qualitative content analysis of 4800 officiacl documents including tourism policies, congressional hearings, tourism bills, Tourism proposals and the government spending. As a result, 486 documents were identified with focus on tourism issues. Minor changes in relative share of the issue on the agenda during 2013- 2019 reflect the failure in tourism agenda setting.Turning to the typology of the tourism issues, six categories identified: tourism management and organization, tourism product development, tourism rules and regulations, tourism marketing, tourism human resources and tourism information management. While the first three stood in the main category places in the most of the agenda indicators, issues related to marketing and information management has been less considered.ConclusionsUsing a variety of policy agenda indicators to study the transmission of different types of tourism issues to public policy process, this study differs from few past agenda setting research in the context of Iran in which only policies are explored.In conclusion, it is argued that the failure in getting different tourism issues onto the public policy agenda is one of the main challenges in tourism policy making and subsequently in tourism development in this country. Emphasizing on less considered issues as agenda setting priorities could effectively address the gaps in needed tourism policies. This paper suggests that participatory tourism management at macro level might facilitate the transmission of the tourism priorities towrads policy agenda.
Mohammadali Shahhoseini; Mohsen Nazari; Mohamad saleh Torkestani; Fatemeh Ghorbani
Abstract
Abstract The corporate social responsibility approach and the tourism industry are directly related to the community and the environment and are somehow intertwined and highly interrelated. This research aimed to present a conceptual model of corporate social responsibility in Iran’s tourism. A ...
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Abstract The corporate social responsibility approach and the tourism industry are directly related to the community and the environment and are somehow intertwined and highly interrelated. This research aimed to present a conceptual model of corporate social responsibility in Iran’s tourism. A qualitative research approach has been used for conducting this research. This research’s statistical population has consisted of all tourism experts in 2018. The sample consists of 21 of them selected using purposive judgmental and snowball sampling methods; sampling was continued until theoretical saturation. The research tool was semi-structured interviews whose trustworthiness was assessed using the review method when coding and approval of research colleagues. The coding of the data was done manually, and according to the main purpose of the research, a paradigm model was constructed using the Grounded Theory approach. According to the results, the phenomenon of corporate social responsibility in the field of tourism includes various dimensions of "intra-company," "environmental," "economical," "social," "cultural," and "legal." The results also showed that "gaining social acceptance," "forming new concepts and knowledgeable and responsible tourists," "compensating for the negative effects of tourism," and "economic profitability" are the causal conditions affecting the implementation of this responsibility. Besides, intervening conditions and contexts affecting corporate social responsibility implementation strategies in the field of tourism in Iran were identified, which lead to "sustainable tourism development," "corporate competitive advantage," and "business sustainability."
Majid Akbari; Masoumeh Akbari
Abstract
The spread of Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has affected the tourism industry more than any other industry; the closure of foreign borders, domestic travel restrictions, the cancellation of flights, and the closure of accommodation and tourist sites have all caused severe consequences in the tourism ...
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The spread of Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has affected the tourism industry more than any other industry; the closure of foreign borders, domestic travel restrictions, the cancellation of flights, and the closure of accommodation and tourist sites have all caused severe consequences in the tourism industry. Continuation of this trend has reduced the level of competitiveness of most countries in the world to obtain more resources and benefits from travel and tourism thus far. In this regard, this article was to recognize and cluster the stimuli affecting the future competitiveness of tourism in Iran for the post-COVID era by using structural analysis. Theoretical data were collected using desk research, and experimental data by field method (interview, panel of experts, and cross-cutting questionnaire). The statistical population of this study was 20 experts and academic experts, using the Delphi technique and judgmental or purposeful sampling method. 41 stimuli in 4 dimensions of environmental empowerment, the readiness of conditions and legal framework of tourism, infrastructural readiness, and empowerment of natural and cultural resources are processed by structural interaction analysis method in MICMAC software. The findings of this study indicated that the stimuli clustering system indicates their concentration in the dual propulsion cluster. Also, among the 41 tourism competitiveness stimulus for the post-COVID era, the stimulus of boosting travel tours to attract tourists (infrastructural readiness), the choice of Iran due to previous experience (readiness of conditions and legal framework of tourism), and travel leap readiness and decent hosting of tourists (infrastructural readiness) are ranked first to third with 385, 364 and 361 direct impact, respectively. According to the obtained results, it can be concluded that the type of 10 initially identified stimuli with high direct impact is of the type of infrastructural readiness.
Mohsen Fazeli varzaneh; Ali Ghorbi; Mahdi Bahmani
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to examine Iran status concerning the quantitative and qualitative dimensions, compare with countries in the Middle East in order to be aware of Iran’s position, and help to decision-making in tourism policy-making; Also, the relation between scientific production ...
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The purpose of this research was to examine Iran status concerning the quantitative and qualitative dimensions, compare with countries in the Middle East in order to be aware of Iran’s position, and help to decision-making in tourism policy-making; Also, the relation between scientific production and tourism income was examined. The present study was carried out with the Scientometrics approach. Tourism scientific products extracted from WOS database between 1998-2017. HistCite and VOSviewer software were used for data analysis and drawing of scientific maps, and for statistical analysis, Excel and SPSS software were used. The results showed that Iran has 354 indexed documents in this database. In terms of the number of documents in this field, Iran has 38th place in the world and the third one in the Middle East. Also, in terms of international cooperation in the world and the Middle East, the most cooperative works of all in Iran were with Turkey and Malaysia respectively. The results indicated a growing trend in documents number of Iran, in the field of in tourism. Hence, Considering that Iran has a good status in the Middle East in terms of the number of documents, but it has had a poor performance in terms of citations and international cooperation, which should be taken into consideration. Also, according to results, the relation between scientific productions and tourism income was significant at the level of 0.01.
Mehrnaz Alizadeh; roozbeh mirzaei; Philip Pearce
Abstract
lthough much research has been done on destination branding, the study of destination personality remains limited. The purpose of this study is to investigate the destination personality of Iran and to examine the relationship between destination personality and behavioral intentions of international ...
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lthough much research has been done on destination branding, the study of destination personality remains limited. The purpose of this study is to investigate the destination personality of Iran and to examine the relationship between destination personality and behavioral intentions of international tourists using the Aaker model (1997). The statistical population of this study is Iran’s international inbound tourists. The research questionnaire was distributed randomly among sample members. From a total of 420 questionnaires, 407 questionnaires were analyzed. The findings of the exploratory factor analysis and multivariate regression analysis indicate that tourists ascribe personality characteristics to destinations and that the perceived destination personality of Iran in the eyes of international tourists has three dimensions: hospitality and culture, sincerity, and vibrant.
Mohammad Najjarzadeh
Abstract
Agritourism has become increasingly important in recent years and differentcountries have put a lot of efforts to promote it. Experts believe that agritourismcan play an important and constructive role in sustainable agricultural andrural development as a new strategy. Accordingly, the present study ...
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Agritourism has become increasingly important in recent years and differentcountries have put a lot of efforts to promote it. Experts believe that agritourismcan play an important and constructive role in sustainable agricultural andrural development as a new strategy. Accordingly, the present study analyzes thechallenges and issues facing agritourism development in the rural areas ofShahrud city using a qualitative research design and purposive sampling. Datawere collected via holding interviews and meetings with three groups ofstakeholders (farmers, tourists and managers) based on the modified NominalGroup Technique (NGT) in the summer of 2015. The central question raised atthe meeting was: What are the challenges and issues of agritourism developmentin the rural areas of Shahrud city? According to the results, the stakeholderscategorized the challenges and issues facing agritourism development inShahrud into six groups: distance from major population resources,comprehensive national and regional policies, awareness and training,marketing, customs, and laws
Saeed DaiKarimzadeh; Sara Ghobadi; Nasim Foroudastan
Volume 8, Issue 23 , November 2013, , Pages 131-154
Abstract
Iran is one of the countries that so far from its potential in tourism is not used in an appropriate manner. One of the principles of tourism development is the tourism demand. This study examines factors influencing demand for international tourism in Iran. For this purpose, the number of incoming tourists ...
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Iran is one of the countries that so far from its potential in tourism is not used in an appropriate manner. One of the principles of tourism development is the tourism demand. This study examines factors influencing demand for international tourism in Iran. For this purpose, the number of incoming tourists to Iran has been used as dependent variable of international tourism demand. The effect of real income per capita of ten countries with the highest number of inbound tourists to Iran, Consumer price index for goods and services in Iran, market exchange rate, degree of economic openness and the dummy variable of Islamic revolution and war as the independent variable on the dependent variable is estimated. For this estimation Autoregressive Distributed Lag model (ARDL) is used. The results show real income per capita, market exchange rate and degree of economic openness variables have positive effect and consumer price index for goods and services in Iran and dummy variable (revolution and war) have negative effect on the number of inbound international tourism to Iran.
rahim heydari; ali akbar taghi pour; majid feshari
Volume 7, Issue 19 , November 2012, , Pages 117-137
Abstract
The significance of tourism’s economic impact in developing countries is to such an extent that De Kadt dubbed it their “passport to development”. Hence, factors influencing the demand for this industry have been always the center of attention of researchers and planners. In this vein, ...
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The significance of tourism’s economic impact in developing countries is to such an extent that De Kadt dubbed it their “passport to development”. Hence, factors influencing the demand for this industry have been always the center of attention of researchers and planners. In this vein, foreign trade is known to have a significant impact on tourism demand, and the New Trade Theories (NTT) accentuate the role it plays in tourism development. In this study, India, Pakistan and Turkey are selected as Iran’s main foreign trade partners and as origins for traveling to Iran. The model is estimated by GMM approach in the Gravity model framework. Empirical results of the paper indicate that international trade has a positive and significant effect on tourism demand in the destination country. Moreover the geographical distance and price ratio variables are proved to have negative and significant impacts on Iran’s foreign tourism demand over the study period
alireza puya; hamed mokhtari
Volume 7, Issue 17 , March 2012, , Pages 33-90
Abstract
Operations management has attracted extensive research attention during the recent years, yet there is a dearth of research that examines the taxonomy of service operations strategies. Regarding the pivotal role of the tourism industry in the economic growth of many countries and unique touristic characteristics ...
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Operations management has attracted extensive research attention during the recent years, yet there is a dearth of research that examines the taxonomy of service operations strategies. Regarding the pivotal role of the tourism industry in the economic growth of many countries and unique touristic characteristics of Mashhad city in Iran, the importance and necessity of such researches are indisputable. The aim of this study is to make taxonomy of service operations strategies in Mashhad’s hotels and apartment hotels, to be a pioneering research in Iran. The sample group consists of 80 hotels and 65 apartment hotels. The taxonomy presented contributes to the development and enhancement of operations management theory, and demonstrates the current crucial place and importance of the nine structural and infrastructural service operations strategic decisions in Iran’s hotel industry. This study uses a k-mean cluster analysis to develop a classification based on 9 service operations strategy dimensions. The effectiveness of the classification scheme is tested by multiple discriminant analysis. Four strategic clusters were identified, each tending to emphasize on a different dimension. The outcomes of this research were proved to be different from those of others.
mahmud ziaee; leyla farmani
Abstract
Tour guides are frontline employees in the tourism industry who play an important role in providing informative and new experiences for tourists seeking exotic destinations like Iran. Success of the tourism industry very much depends on the performance of tour guides in each destination. Despite the ...
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Tour guides are frontline employees in the tourism industry who play an important role in providing informative and new experiences for tourists seeking exotic destinations like Iran. Success of the tourism industry very much depends on the performance of tour guides in each destination. Despite the importance of tour guiding in delivering a satisfied tour experience for package tourist, it has not attracted much of scholarly attention in the tourism discipline. Little research has been carried out in order to systematically examine the performance of tour guides throughout the world. This present research is aimed specifically at the assessment of attributes and performance parameters of tour guides in Iran. The evaluation here is based on the application of importance-performance analysis (IPA) factor as related to data assembled from incoming tours from European countries. IPA is a simple and useful technique in prioritizing decision options and resource allocation for an organization based on its product or service attributes. In this research, initially a list of all relevant tour guide attributes was documented based on an intensive literature review. After collating this data with advice obtained from well-informed experts including academics, tour operators, tour guides and officials from Iran’s Tourism Organization, and the Iranian Tour Guides Association, 31 relevant attributes were chosen. The next stage of this research required collection of tourists’ assessments of the relative importance of the tour guides’ attributes as expressed in the questionnaires provided for them, as well as the performance of their Iranian tour guides in these attributes. Data were collected in Tehran, from April to October 2010 at the end of their tours. A total of 270 copies of questionnaire were distributed between European tourists who travel in package tours to Iran. Among the returned
questionnaires, 142 questionnaires were deemed complete and usable. The cronbach's alpha of all performance & importance questions was
.95.The rating of their individual Iranian guides incorporated the use of the 5 point Likert scale and the IPA matrix was used to quantify tour guides’ strengths and weaknesses based on the chosen attributes. The results of the IPA data indicate that for European tourists the
Iranian tour guides performed well in attributes including, politeness, sense of humor, cooperation with other services staff, a good knowledge of the cultural and historical aspects of the tours, the respect paid to the customers, etc. The results also indicated that tour
guides in Iran should aim to improve their proficiency in the guiding language, problem solving, flexibility, interpretation between tourists and the local people they meet, an in depth knowledge of the various destinations visited and of the planned routes, presenting brief information and abilities in good presentation skills. The results of this research illustrate that use of the IPA model can be an effective managerial tool in its application to the evaluation of Iranian guides. Based on the identification of their strengths and weaknesses the results will assist practitioners with the allocation of resources to be effective in the improvement of the Iranian tour guiding service.
hasan asadi; amin pour naghi; noushin esfahani; hamid zeytunli
Volume 5, Issue 13 , November 2010, , Pages 47-64
Abstract
The present research aims to study the various dimensions of security in Iran’s sport tourism. The statistical population of this research include all of the international sport tourists such as athletes, coaches, trainers, doctors, journalists, and associated delegations, who participated in the ...
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The present research aims to study the various dimensions of security in Iran’s sport tourism. The statistical population of this research include all of the international sport tourists such as athletes, coaches, trainers, doctors, journalists, and associated delegations, who participated in the Fajr International Games (2010). The total number of the sample population is 420. The preliminary data were collected using a questionnaire devised by the researcher which its validity was approved by the experts. To determine the reliability, the questionnaires were distributed among 25 foreign sport tourists, resulting in Cronbach's alpha (α=0.83). This questionnaire investigated various dimensions such as the sport tourists satisfaction with the existing security in Iran, the security-disturbing factors from the view point of sport tourists before and after traveling to Iran, the role of the tourist police in the maintenance and improvement of tourism in Iran, the role of the media in depicting security in this country, and the measures these tourists suggest to be taken to improve security in Iran’s sport tourism. For data analysis, in the descriptive statistics section, standard deviation, cumulative frequency, cumulative frequency percentage, mean and mode were identified and for the evaluation of the data SPSS16 was employed. The results show that the major causes of worry for sport tourists before coming to Iran were: social aggressiveness, personal territory violation, and robbery. However, 34% of the tourists declared they were not worried at all about the security in Iran before their departure. The most prominent matters the sport tourists were anxious about, during their visit to Iran, were: lack of personal security, social aggressiveness, and psychological insecurity. However, regarding some security-disturbing matters like hitting, murder, rape, and terrorism, no signs of concern among the tourists were felt. Additionally, 53% of the sports tourist didn’t witness any security violating circumstances during their visit to Iran. Anyhow, the feeling of insecurity originating from the media, family and friends, decreased significantly after the tourists’ traveling to Iran.
