Tourism planning
Fatemeh Shekari
Abstract
Although the research on religious tourism experiences has increased in recent years, and given that most of the studies have been focused on the spiritual aspect of these experiences, there still needs to be more knowledge about the multiple attributes of religious tourists’ experiences. Therefore, ...
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Although the research on religious tourism experiences has increased in recent years, and given that most of the studies have been focused on the spiritual aspect of these experiences, there still needs to be more knowledge about the multiple attributes of religious tourists’ experiences. Therefore, the current study aims to provide an “integrated and multifaceted conceptual framework of religious tourists’ experiences” using a systematic literature review and deductive thematic analysis. The search was conducted on June 12, 2023. The PRISMA procedure identified fifty-three relevant articles ranging from 2006 to 2022. Based on the findings, the multifaceted religious tourists’ experiences can include cognitive, emotional, physical, relational, recovery, spiritual, transformative, and behavioral facets. The findings can extend the literature and benefit managers, planners, and destination marketing organizations in designing religious tourism experiences to enhance visitors’ satisfaction and destination competitiveness.Introduction In the 21st century, religious tourism and pilgrimages are critical components of the travel and tourism market (Albayrak et al., 2018). Bibliometric studies reveal the exponential growth of religious tourism studies in the last decade. Due to religious tourism’s benefits, destinations need to understand religious tourists' experiences to enhance destination competitiveness and attract these tourists. However, religious tourism experience is an emerging topic in the literature (Collins-Kreiner, 2020), and scant studies have been conducted on this topic (Bond et al., 2015). Also, most of the research has focused on the spiritual aspect and ignored other aspects to a large extent. Meanwhile, managers of religious sites should offer a holistic experience that embraces spiritual and non-spiritual complementary aspects (Durán-Sánchez et al., 2018). Considering the importance of understanding the religious tourists' experience and the inadequate studies in this field, especially the lack of comprehensive frameworks that include multiple aspects of the religious tourists’ experiences (Kim et al., 2020), the present study has systematically reviewed the literature to provide an “integrated, multifaceted religious tourism experience conceptual framework” and extends literature in this field.Materials nd MethodsThe present research employed a systematic literature review. Scopus was chosen as the database as it is the largest multidisciplinary database in social sciences (Aria et al., 2020). Also, compared to the Web of Science, it has a broader coverage of tourism journals (Lin & Rasoolimanesh, 2022). The search was conducted on June 12, 2023. The PRISMA procedure identified fifty-three relevant articles ranging from 2006 to 2022. The deductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was done to determine the aspects and components of the religious tourists’ experience based on the “orchestra model” (Pearce & Mohammadi, 2021) and the “multifaceted conceptual framework of tourist experience” (Packer & Ballantyne, 2016).Discussion and ResultsBased on the findings, the “integrated, multifaceted framework of religious tourists’ experiences” includes cognitive, affective, physical, relational, restorative, spiritual, transformative, and behavioral facets, each includes the following aspects:Cognitive: reflection, learning or discovering, perceived authenticity, perception of setting attributes, mental engagement, and rememberingAffective: joy, awe or wonder, attachment, hope, pride, discontentPhysical: sensory engagement, bodily engagement, or challengeRelational: social interaction and sharing, communitasRestorative: peacefulness or relaxation, escape, nourishment, freedomSpiritual: spiritual connection, religiousness or closeness to God or sacred people, communion with nature, purificationTransformative: self-growth or fulfillment, liminality or flow, identity constructionBehavioral: religious site or ritual-specific (religious), non-religious (touristic) ConclusionsTheoretically, this research attempted to provide a multifaceted perspective of the religious tourists’ experience, employing a systematic literature review. Therefore, it has presented the most recent overview of the topic and identified the theories used, methodologies, study context, and experience attributes. By providing an “integrated, multifaceted conceptual framework of the religious tourist experience,” the present study contributes to extending the literature. This research used the existing frameworks to categorize the attributes of experience. It also added new facets and components. Three facets, namely restorative, spiritual, and transformative, can be added to the “orchestra model of tourist experience” (Pearce & Mohammadi, 2021). Also, the religious tourism-related components of communitas (relational), hope (affective), religiousness or closeness to God or sacred people, communion with nature, purification (spiritual), and liminality or flow (transformative) were added. Other components were also included that may be helpful to describe more general tourism experiences: perceived authenticity and mental engagement (cognitive), self-expression and social acceptance (relational), and identity construction (transformative). This framework needs to be more comprehensive, and future research may add other facets and components. The findings can extend the literature and benefit managers, planners, and destination marketing organizations in designing religious tourism experiences to enhance visitors' satisfaction and destination competitiveness. Finally, study limitations and future research directions are proposed, including cross-cultural studies to compare results and enhance the generalizability of the findings, examining the proposed framework in various religious destinations contexts, paying more attention to Muslim religious tourists’ experiences, considering the role of information and communication technologies, and investigating the interactions of the framework components.
Fatemeh Shekari
Abstract
Tourism can both strengthen and undermine national–ethnic identities on the one hand, but on the other hand it can lead to their gradual disappearance. National–ethnic identities also pose a challenge to the rapid homogenization of cultures caused by globalization. In spite of more than five ...
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Tourism can both strengthen and undermine national–ethnic identities on the one hand, but on the other hand it can lead to their gradual disappearance. National–ethnic identities also pose a challenge to the rapid homogenization of cultures caused by globalization. In spite of more than five decades of research on tourism and national–ethnic identity, there is a research gap given the lack of a comprehensive review of the literature. In this respect, the present study aimed to conduct a quantitative literature review using bibliometric analysis. In order to understand the social and conceptual structure of the research field, the study used VOSviewer_1.6.18 software to carry out performance analysis and science mapping of 383 documents indexed in the Scopus database. The findings indicate that in the last decade, heritage tourism (particularly among diaspora and immigrants), the representation of outbound tourists’ national–ethnic identity, and the representation of destinations’ national–ethnic identity through tourism were among the most popular research topics worthy of further consideration in future studies. Introduction Tourism can leave dual effects on national –ethnic identities. Not only can it strengthen the collective national–ethnic identities, but also as one of the drivers of cultural globalization, it can accelerate the disappearance of such identities. In addition, national–ethnic identity poses an obstacle to the rapid cultural homogenization caused by globalization. In spite of more than five decades of research on tourism and national–ethnic identity, there is a research gap given the lack of a comprehensive and systematic review of the literature. To address this gap, the present study aimed to conduct a quantitative literature review using bibliometric analysis. Materials and MethodsThe statistical population of the study consisted of documents in the field of national–ethnic identity and tourism that were indexed in the Scopus database. A systematic search in the Scopus database on December 23, 2021, resulted in 338 records, including journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers with national identity or ethnic identity and tourism in their title, abstract, or keywords. Performance analysis and science mapping using VOSviewer_1.6.18 software were conducted in order to identify the most influential documents, authors, sources, institutions, and countries, and also to understand the social and conceptual structure of the research field. Results and DiscussionThe results showed that research on national–ethnic identity and tourism has significantly increased since 1976, with the most of articles published in 2021. The most influential documents, in order of their normalized citations, were Packer et al. (2019), Park (2010), Wang et al. (2021), and Zhang et al. (2018). The US, the UK, and Australia had the highest number of documents and citations. The most influential authors, in order of their normalized citations, were morais d.b., smith a., bhandari k., and palmer c. Performance analysis also revealed the most influential sources and institutions. Citation analysis could identify the relationships among the most influential publications, and co-authorship analysis revealed the social structure of the research field based on interactions among authors, institutions, and countries. Moreover, co-word analysis revealed the following three clusters: heritage tourism and national identity, ethnic identity, and immigration and cultural identity, which were categorized according to their themes. ConclusionThe findings showed that the last decade has witnessed an increase in the research on heritage tourism among diaspora and immigrants. Additionally, the representation of outbound tourists’ national–ethnic identity and the representation of destinations’ national–ethnic identity through tourism were among the most popular research topics worthy of further consideration in future studies.
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.
Mohammad Reza Farzin; Fatemeh Shekari; fatemeh Azizi
Abstract
Keeping up with global trends and gaining competitive advantage requires that tourism destinations determine their strategies based on the recognition of the importance of their competitive features and performance. In the present study, the IPA approach was used to assess the importance of various activities ...
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Keeping up with global trends and gaining competitive advantage requires that tourism destinations determine their strategies based on the recognition of the importance of their competitive features and performance. In the present study, the IPA approach was used to assess the importance of various activities for gaining competitive advantage in destination management and the performance of two destinations of Yazd and Shiraz. The results showed that, from experts view, in both destinations, about half of the criteria with low importance and poor performance were in the lowest priorities for allocating resources. Based on the average points of importance in Yazd, the dimensions of "crisis management", "marketing", "climate change", "tourism and hospitality education", "sustainable development" and "product development and innovation" and in the city of Shiraz dimensions of "climate change", "marketing", "crisis management", "sustainable development", "product development and innovation", and "tourism and hospitality education" were identified from the most important to the least important aspects of destination competitiveness, respectively.
