نشریه مطالعات اجتماعی گردشگری
سال یکم شماره 1 (بهار و تابستان 1391)

The Tourism industry, with its both direct and indirect employment capacity to make money in tourist destinations, plays an important role in local economy, but to achieve this goal, tourists have to be attracted. In order to enjoy the benefits of tourism, the tourists’ preferences in selecting their tourism destinations need to be studied. Thus, as the foreign tourism in Iran is limited, most of the tourists are domestic, and they have trips to religious places such as Mashhad and Qom. The purpose of this study is to identify the domestic tourists’ preferences in selecting their destinations in Mashhad. The Entropy method was used to prioritize the tourist attractions. Results show that tourists have given their first priority to Imam Reza Holy Shrine (AS), and then to Shopping Malls, Koohsangi, Torghabe and Shandiz, Mellat Park and Koohestan Park, Golestan Water Area, Vakilabad Park, Ferdowsi Tomb, Naderi Tomb and the museums and other recreation areas around Mashhad. Obviously, the recent domestic tourists have not found the new attractions entertaining enough and this city was not successful in making new attractive tourist destinations so far.

Annually, Mashhad houses a huge number of pilgrims and passengers that, if led to tourist attractions, can be a good potential to increase the profit of the tourism industry in Khorasan Province. But many of those travelers are not aware of the tourist attractions of the province, and visit mainly Imam Reza Holy. Therefore, some appropriate promotional strategies should be considered in order to attract and increase the number of tourists and guide them to the attractive regions. This study tries to identify and prioritize some effective promotional strategies for tourist attraction. Torghabeh, which is a main tourist attraction in the province, is the subject of this case study that has used the “Analytical Hierarchy Process” (AHP), and questionnaire among 133 tourists and 10 experts of The Tourism Organization of Khorasan Razavi in 1389. The results display that, according to the officials and tourists, what can attract the tourists essentially are the advertisements on TV and satellite programs, introductory programs about the tourist attractions of the country, billboard advertisements, and the introduction of the attractive areas of the province at the entrance of the city and the Holy Shrine.

The globally renowned Soltanieh is a city that used to be the country’s capital at the Elkhanan era. Soltanieh, which has several cultural-historical tourism potentials, is placed on the tourism axis of Tarom - Soltanieh - Kataleh khour - Ali Sadr. The other tourist advantage of the city is that it is near to the population centers and the capital. This study has used the SWOT analytical model to analyze the challenges and the drawbacks of the tourism industry in this city, and to provide a strategic planning for the advantages (strengths and opportunities) and limitations (weaknesses and threats). The research findings indicate that the proximity to large population centers such as Tehran and Qazvin, and the unique historical and natural elements (12 cases) with a weighted score of 1163 and 1041 is the most important advantage of Soltanieh. However, tourists’ short stay in the city (47 minutes) and lack of the tourism and regional economic outlook with a weighted score of 1018 and 956 is the main tourism drawback.

The study of the feasibility of rural tourism in different regions requires the accurate investigation in five common sections: 1. attractions 2. accessibility 3. infrastructural establishments and facilities 4. Hospitality and accommodation services 5. organizational and institutional factors, and also presenting the rural tourism to the demanding markets. The products can be appraised within the framework of various indexes and models which are all considered as the study of the feasibility of rural tourism; therefore, the current study intends to assess rural tourism in Esfidan region of North Khorasan and assess the potentiality of the presentation of the rural tourism to the markets. Based on the findings of the present article, the tourism potential of Esfidan is at an elementary level. Also, there are some paucities in different sections which should be removed especially in hospitality services. It must also be heededthat marketing would better be organized on the basis of natural attractions and ecotourism, since they can be helpful at regional, national and international levels.

The quantitative and qualitative development of pilgrimage requires the comprehensive and multi-dimensional approaches. One of the most important aspects of this approach is the analysis of the documents and programs of the growth of the country about the pilgrimage and tourism and the position they have in each of these programs. The civil and development plans are the most important national documents in the formation of upper planning Projects Plans in the country. And the reconsideration of such plans in the medium-term plans is essential. According to the old and significant history of the pilgrimage and tourism, it is essential to address this matter on a national level, particularly in the national Fifth Plan. This paper has taken a content-analysis documentary method to study and analyze, quantitatively as well as qualitatively, the civil plans (1327-1390) associated with pilgrimage and tourism. According to the studied documents, the number of the subjects associated with pilgrimage and tourism in the two periods before and after the revolution were 148 cases; the most of which were related to the field of management, the 37 of which were related to the infrastructure area (housing welfare and catering), the economics area (banking facilities and capital investments), and the social – cultural arena (publication, education and exhibitions).

Zarivar Lake in Marivan (Kurdistan Province - Western part of Iran) is one of the most beautiful coastal tourist attractions that catches the attention of so many tourists in four seasons of the year – especially in holidays. Thus, with respect to the touristic significance of this region, we can make fundamental plans to create job opportunities and solve the economic problems of the town. In this regard, locating a suitable site for tourist services, as the tourist village, is one of the most important steps to start the plan with. Choosing a suitable location for a tourist village requires the identification and analysis of a various criteria and indicators. Therefore, in this study, first, the effective criteria and under criteria for the location of a suitable tourist-service site was identified. Because of the different effectiveness of the indicators, 25 tourism experts used the AHP technique for the paired comparison of the components, and calculated the final weight of each of them. Then, according to the criteria and the final weight of the under criteria, the information layers were created in GIS environment, and were also analyzed to select the best site for hamlet tourism in the shores of Zarivar Lake. The results of the combination of the information layers of the three potential sites have been prioritized based on the degree of desirability.

The tourism elements in the cities include the attractions and some secondary elements. These secondary elements include the tourism services and facilities, necessary for the welfare of tourists and their distribution in the city, and finally lead to the formation of the tourism atmosphere. This research has used the analytical and systemic methods to assess the secondary tourism elements in Zanjan, and to define the effective processes. For this purpose, first the location of each element in Zanjan has been determined with GPS, and then the spatial pattern of tourism elements was determined by then nearest neighborhood model. The results showed that the spatial pattern of tourism elements has gradually changed. Therefore, to determine the causes of such a change, the satellite images of Zanjan in 1984, 2000 and 2012 were analyzed in order to assess the physical growth of the city. The result showed the very rapid movement of the physical growth of the city in the last decade; so that the built-up lands in 2012 had a 92% growth that was equal to 4,764 hectares. This growth has led to the formation of new tourism elements in the modern sections of the city – far from the central parts of city. Next, to find out the reasons of this growth, the ANP model was used. According to the results, the public cost with 0.38 efficiency rate is the most important index, and the land price with 0.49 as sub criteria is the most important factor in the allocation of tourism elements in recent years.