Tourism planning
Nima Khademi; Abbas Abbasi; Kazem Askarifar
Abstract
Local event tourism is one of the types of tourism that can play an essential role in the sustainable economic and social development of communities. However, this issue has received less attention. Meymand Fars Flower and Rose Festival is one of these events held every year in the spring season. This ...
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Local event tourism is one of the types of tourism that can play an essential role in the sustainable economic and social development of communities. However, this issue has received less attention. Meymand Fars Flower and Rose Festival is one of these events held every year in the spring season. This study aims to identify the factors that attract tourists to this event. For this purpose, the factors attracting tourists to the events were extracted by qualitative content analysis and then the tourists' opinions. Finally, a conceptual framework ofinfluencing factors on customers' tendencies, including 50 indicators in 15 components, was presented. Also, the quantitative analysis of Q data shows that accessibility, hospitality, and spending time with friends were essential for the first group of tourists, social interactions and event quality were necessary for the second group, patriotic and learning motives were important for the third group, and experience and enjoyment of the event were necessary for the fourth group. At the same time, natural attractions and enjoyment of the festival environment have been essential for all tourists, and these results can be a basis for formulating marketing strategies for local tourism events.IntroductionDuring the last two decades, the tourism industry has increasingly strengthened the local economy due to its high diversity and convenient access. In addition, the development of the tourism industry causes benefits such as increasing the employment and income of residents, improving transportation, and, most importantly, protecting the cultural heritage of local communities. One of the types of tourism is event tourism, which has grown significantly in recent years. Event tourism is a form of travel with special interests in which people visit a special event to attend or along with their trip. One of the important products in tourism development has been an event in the form of cultural festivals. In this regard, local festivals as a branch of cultural events are considered one of travelers’ actions in rural areas. On the other hand, due to its various natural, historical, and cultural attractions, Iran is considered one of the most capable countries in the world for organizing such events. For this reason, practical steps can be taken toward the successful development of this type of tourism by more closely examining the events and festivals held in the country. One of these local festivals is the Meymand Fars Flower and Rose Festival, held every year at the beginning of the rose-picking season for one month in the Meymand Fars region. In this regard, it will be beneficial to identify the effective factors in attracting tourists to this annual local event, to get a more detailed understanding of the affairs and a deeper understanding of the social, cultural, and economic realities of the region and to plan for the sustainable development of this region. However, this issue has received less attention despite its clarity and necessity. On this subject, the current research seeks to identify the indicators and components influencing the tendency of tourists to visit rural events by using the qualitative content analysis method and providing a conceptual framework of these factors. Then, by analyzing the data of Meymand Flower and Rose Festival tourists based on the conceptual model, the types of tourists of this local event were identified.Materials and MethodsThis research aims to identify the factors that attract event tourists to local festivals using the Q method in Meymand Flower and Rose Festival, Fars. In terms of purpose, this research is practical, and according to the approach and type of data, it can be categorized as mixed research. The current research was carried out in 2023 in Fars province regarding time and place. In this research, first, the qualitative content analysis method with a directional approach has been used to identify and determine the existing indicators. Then, to know the mentality of participants in the Meymand Fars Flower and Rose Festival and collect data (using the Q method), all the customers who participated in this festival in 2023 were studied.Discussion and ResultsIn the first step, based on the content analysis of the screened studies, the researchers reviewed the final studies several times to determine titles or themes. At this stage, the researchers identified the factors affecting tourists' tendency towards events. Since some words had the same meaning, the necessary overlaps were made, and some indicators were removed. In the next step, the content validity ratio of Lawshe was used to check the validity of indicators in rural tourism. After this step, the number of 50 indicators was finalized and categorized into 15 concepts. Then, in the quantitative part, the data obtained from the Q factor analysis methodology was used to identify and extract the mentality of tourists. For this purpose, the tourists' opinions about the factors affecting their attendance at the Meymand Flower and Rose Festival 2023 were collected. With exploratory factor analysis, the participants were selected based on the shared values and the role of the data in explaining the total explanatory variance, and finally, the Varimax rotation divided the rest into four groups after removing 30 of them.ConclusionsIn this research, an attempt was made to use a mixed approach; firstly, with the help of qualitative content analysis, the indicators and components of local festivals were identified, and then the mentality of the tourists of Meymand Fars Flower and Rose Festival was extracted as a study. Finally, a conceptual framework of influencingfactors on customers' tendencies, including 50 indicators in 15 components, was presented. Then, based on the results of the quantitative method, four groups of customers were identified in Meymand Rose and Rose Festival. Enjoying nature, weather, and flowers and plants are among the motivations that are common among all four groups; in other words, it was the common feature of all visitors to this festival. However, in the separated groups, the factors have a significant dispersion.In the first group, the three factors of accessibility, hospitality of the destination, and spending time with friends are among the unique factors that have attracted them to this festival. This group constituted almost 37 percent of the participants in the research.The second group, which included almost 27 percent of the sample of festival tourists, with a sense of loyalty to the event and satisfaction, considers this festival a platform for social interactions and feels a sense of national pride by attending it.The third group is attracted to this festival with patriotic motives and the aim of learning, excitement, and making memories, and the festival’s popularity has been one of the main reasons for them. Finally, the fourth group of this festival has chosen a suitable place for photography and a space to enjoy holidays and relaxation with the intention of diversity in experience.In this context, the most significant difference between the present research and the previous studies is related to the classification of factors affecting the tendency of tourists, so that in none of the mentioned researches, the factors influencing the attraction of event tourists to local festivals have not been reported in a comprehensive category.Therefore, it is recommended to relevant provincial and national policymakers and patriot service providers to pay attention to the extracted effective indicators as the most key factors in their service strategy by recognizing the important characteristics of each category of tourists.
Tourism planning
Zahra Soleymani; Hamdollah Sojasi qedari; Hamid Shayan; Siamak Seyfi
Abstract
While traveling, tourists are looking for memorable experiences, and often, their decisions are influenced by the experiences they have gained from the destination. ZMET cognitive approach was used to extract memorable experiences of tourists from rural destinations. Based on theoretical saturation, ...
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While traveling, tourists are looking for memorable experiences, and often, their decisions are influenced by the experiences they have gained from the destination. ZMET cognitive approach was used to extract memorable experiences of tourists from rural destinations. Based on theoretical saturation, an interview was conducted with 35 tourists who had traveled to the villages of Mashhad, Neyshabur, and Torghabe - Shandiz counties and had more than 83 mental involvements with these destinations. Nine originator constructs and 11 destination constructs were extracted; the most frequent originator construct was the "natural landscape of the village," which created memorable experiences like "silence and peace," "feeling of freshness and liberation," and "pleasantness" in tourists. The theoretical literature on memorable experiences from rural destinations is very limited, so this study provides a new understanding regarding the formation of memorable experiences from rural destinations, which managers of rural destinations use to attract more tourists and loyalty.IntroductionTourists are looking for different tourism experiences by presence in rural areas. Experiences are not like products and services that are produced and distributed in the outside world, but are created individually. They are simultaneously created in the depths of the mind as a result of interaction with the surrounding environment. Since the existence of rural tourism destinations depends on the presence of tourists. Therefore, if rural tourism destinations can design and provide memorable and attractive experiences for them through identifying and understanding their customers' needs, they will achieve development. In general, understanding and enhancing the positive and memorable experiences of tourists is considered as a competitive advantage in the contemporary tourism market. For this reason, memorable tourism experiences are necessary for the sustainability and competitiveness of rural destinations. Also, experiences affect tourists' future decisions. If rural tourism destinations can offer memorable tourism experiences to visitors, it will significantly influence the consumer's behavioral intention to revisit or recommend the destination to others.Materials and MethodsThe research method of this study is a set of descriptive-analytical methods. In terms of purpose, it is practical and a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. In order to identify the memorable experiences of tourists in the studied rural areas, Zaikovsky's questionnaire and then the ZMET method were used. For this purpose, 35 tourists who traveled to the tourist villages of Mashhad, Neyshabur and Torghabe- Shandiz cities and had more than 83 mental involvements with these destinations based on the Zaykovsky questionnaire, were interviewed by the ZMET method.Discussion and ResultsIn general, 7 basic structures were identified in tourist villages, which can be effective in creating memorable experiences among tourists. These 7 structures include the natural landscape of the village, healthy products, local culture, traditional architecture, adventure and physical activity, interaction and cooperation, and deficiencies and damages. Each of these basic structures has several connecting structures that ultimately lead to final structures or memorable experiences. Finally, 11 memorable experiences that include silence and peace, fresh and liberated feeling, enjoyable, new flavors, unique lifestyle, exploration and learning, nostalgic feeling, exciting, being unique, involving and participation, and being uncomfortable is extracted. All sample tourists pointed to the basic structure of the natural and pristine landscape of the villages and mentioned 6 connecting structures for this structure, which ultimately led to 3 memorable experiences, namely silence and peace, freshness and liberation feeling, and enjoyable. The basic structure of traditional architecture with a frequency of 32 is another frequent structure that is led by 6 connecting structures to a nostalgic feeling as another memorable experience for tourists from rural destinations. The third most frequent construct with a frequency of 18 is local culture. This structure includes 12 connecting structures that ultimately lead to a unique lifestyle experience and exploration and learning in them.ConclusionsExperiences are the main product of tourism, which are formed individually and in the tourist's mind, which cannot be interfered with and are specific to each person. But it is possible to influence the formation of these experiences through basic actions and planning in tourism destinations. In fact, providing attractive, diverse and memorable experiences makes a rural destination have the ability to compete in the tourism market and is considered as a fundamental factor that can lead to the success and innovation of this industry. The experiences that tourists gain from rural tourism destinations have a great impact on their future behavioral intentions and, as a result, on the development of rural tourism destinations. Based on this, in the present study, 10 positive memorable experiences were extracted through interviews with 35 tourists who had traveled to the studied rural tourism areas, which include peace and silence, freshness and liberation feeling, pleasantness, new flavors, unique lifestyle, exploring and learning, nostalgic feeling, excitement, uniqueness and involvement and participation. In addition to these experiences, negative memorable experiences have also been mentioned by tourists, which include discomfort and sadness as a result of shortages and damages in rural areas. Considering the many capabilities that rural areas have in the field of tourism, they can offer many experiences to tourists. The results and findings of the present research can have a significant impact on the expansion of literature in the field of memorable experiences of tourists from rural tourism destinations. Also, the findings of the research can be used by managers and planners of rural tourism in knowing the experiences and views of tourists from rural destinations, who can provide a suitable environment for tourists to have memorable and attractive experiences when traveling to rural destinations.
