Tourism Management Studies

Abstract The chief goal of hotels is to satisfy and retain their customers.
Previous researches have shown that contented hotel guests are more
likely to revisit a hotel than guests who were somehow dissatisfied.
This study attempts to scrutinize the relationship between service
quality perceptions and customer loyalty in the hotels located in the
city of Shiraz. The other specific purposes of this study are the
following: 1) to investigate the perceived service quality and customer
loyalty in hotels of Shiraz, 2) to scrutinize relations between service
quality and customer loyalty dimensions, and 3) to provide
suggestions to improve service quality and customer loyalty in the
four-star hotels of Shiraz. In this research, perceived service quality
was measured through five dimensions of SERVQUAL (tangibles,
reliability, assurance, responsiveness, and empathy) developed by
Parasuraman et al. (1988). Also, customer loyalty was measured by
the questionnaire developed by Skogland and Siguaw (2004).
Afterwards, 196 questionnaires were collected and analyzed using
Kolmogorov- Smirnov (K-S) test, Spearman correlation coefficient,
and Binomial Test. Results demonstrated a strong correlation between
service quality perceptions and customer’s loyalty. Furthermore,
among the 5 dimensions of Servqual (tangibles, reliability, assurance,
responsiveness, and empathy), the tangibles dimension showed the
least correlation with customer loyalty, emphasizing more importance
on human elements of service quality.
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Abstract Climatic and geographical features of Gorgan (e.g. lying in the
vicinity of North - and Razavi-khorasan, Semnan, Tehran, and
Mazandaran provinces) on the one hand and its cultural and historical
attractions (e.g. Existence of Turkman people and their handicrafts) on
the other, have rendered this city into a prominent tourist spot. This
research, aims to evaluate the Gorgan - tourists’ satisfaction level and
the principal factors affecting it. After distribution of 250
questionnaires, data were analyzed through descriptive and analytical
statistics methods. Results indicate that four factors including service
quality, environmental quality, host behavior quality, and services
cost, can explain more than %54 of the variance of the variables. Also,
a significant correlation is observed between the mentioned factors
and the tourists’ satisfaction level. At the end, some suggestions are
proposed for improving tourists’ satisfaction and tourism development
in Gorgan.

Abstract Nowadays, sport tourism has greatly expanded to include a wide range of
activities, based on which, by arranging facilities and considering the
marketing approaches, this type of tourism can be developed in Iran and
in the Ardabil province particularly. Despite the importance of sport
tourism, yet no serious study has taken place in this respect in the
mentioned province or in Iran at all. Since sport tourism is a new concept
in Iran’s tourism industry and Ardabil province, so the important issue is
how to utilize these opportunities and capabilities in a right manner from
the marketing perspective. In line of what was said above, in this
opportunity, it is attempted to review the sport tourism, and in the
meanwhile, to investigate the perspective of domestic sport tourists about
sport tourism marketing mix, and to develop an appropriate pattern
accordingly. This is a descriptive – survey study, from the research
method perspective. Data are gathered through secondary and primary
sources. The target population of the study are the domestic tourists who
have travelled to Ardebil, Meshkin Shahr and Sar' e Ein cities, which are
the major sport tourism centers of Ardebil province. Therefore, a
questionnaire was designed based on the personal and behavioral
characteristics of the tourists and the 8 P’s of sport tourism marketing
mix; afterwards, the questionnaires were distributed among 110 sport
tourists by means of accidental sampling method. Appropriate analysis
were made for each of the marketing mix components by utilizing
different statistical tests namely, Kolmogrov - Smirnov, Binomial
distribution, one sample T- test and Friedman test. In general, results of
Friedman test shows that there were weaknesses regarding to the
components of “productivity and quality”, “process” and “place and
time” according to priority. Also based on the findings of research a
mathematical pattern was developed.

Abstract Rural tourism is one of the growing sectors in tourism industry that
can play an important role in creating jobs, revitalizing rural life and
preserving various historical heritages of rural areas, and ultimately
shaping an integrated and sustainable development. This paper aims to
investigate the different socio-economic and environmental impact of
tourism on the village of Qouri Qaleh in the province of Kermanshah.
This place attracts thousands of tourists annually due to its unique
natural and historical heritages. The research is based on descriptive –
analytical methods. A field work was conducted to collect the required
data with the help of 150 questionnaires which were distributed
among residents of the village, using random sampling. Data were
analyzed via SPSS. Results revealed a positive opinion of the rural
residents about the economic impacts of tourism such as employment
opportunities and increase in people’s income. However, tourism
development has led to land speculation and a rapid land-use change
at the cost of agricultural decline. Also, degradation of environment
by water pollution and overuse of rural natural resources, have created
new challenges for tourism development in this village. From social
point of view there has been a considerable decline in rural urban
migration, increase in people’s knowledge and improvement of rural
housing. At the end, the paper presents some recommendations for
tourism management and balanced development with respect to the
carrying capacity of the area.

Abstract Decision making about selecting quality-based programs is a sensitive
problem in the firms looking for effectiveness and profitability
advantages. The aim of this paper is to utilize Simple Additive
Weighting (SAW) method to deal with prioritizing quality-based
investments in service firms under fuzzy environment. For this
purpose, at first, alternatives (types of investment) will be identified.
Then, exogenous preferences are identified according to the
competitive environment and endogenous preferences are determined
using the Five-Gaps Model of service quality and gaps analysis.
Finally, between different types of investment, the best option is
recommended. Also, a real case – a travel agency – is studied to
demonstrate the proposed method. The results indicate that the Five-
Gaps Analysis model combined with multiple criteria decision making
(MCDM) and fuzzy set theory have high ability in evaluation of
quality-based programs in service firms.

Abstract The perception of visitors' behavioral intentions is of great importance
for destination managers and marketers. The present study is about to
study the effective factors on visitors behavioral intentions in tourist
destinations,which examines the effect of destination
attributes ,perceived quality of destination offerings, perceived value
and satisfaction on behavioral intentions. The sample of the current
study considersall the visitors of Torghabe tourist destination in
Mashhad city in the summer of 2011 and chooses 494 visitors
randomly. The research questionnaire was developed by the
researcher after confirming the validity and reliability of data and then
followed by their distribution; finally data collection was done
through structural equation modeling and analyzed in LIZREL
software.the results shows destination attributes have direct positive
effect on perceived quality of destination offerings; and on the other
hand, perceived value and satisfaction are under direct effect of
perceived value. Furthermore, the positive direct effect of perceived
value and satisfaction on behavioral intentions was confirmed. The
results also indicated that visitors perceived value of destination
offerings has an indirect effect on behavioral intentions through
mediating variables of satisfaction and perceived value.

Abstract In this study, willingness to pay (WTP) of the visitors of "shahre
sukhte" has been determined with the use of conditional valuation
method (CVM) and dichotomous choice questionnaire. Willingness to
pay is calculated with Logit model, and the parameters of the model
are estimated by maximum likelihood method. Results revealed that
58% of the research sample were willing to pay for their visit to
"shahre sukhte". The average willingness to pay for each visit to the
place equaled to 6563 Rials and the total recreational value was
estimated to be more than 1292 Million Rials per year. Additionally, it
was indicated that variables of age, income, Antiquities-related
occupations or fields of study, and the perceived importance of
protection of historical collections, had significant effects on
willingness to pay. The influencing factors on willingness to pay were
related to the importance of historical collections protection,
occupation or field of study associated with the Antiquities, family
size, age and income, respectively.