An Investigation on the Concept of Spirituality in Tourism: Content Analysis

Today’s Human is trapped in materialistic and physical changes, this fact has made him sick of repetition and routine flow of life, this is while the two dimensions of spirituality and physical aspect are inseparable from human being, but seems like spirituality is being more and more ignored thus human is seeking for the meanings and values to free himself of perplexity. Tourism as a phenomenon is being known as a means of searching for meaning of being. Modern Tourists differ from the traditional travellers, their curiosity conveys them to seek, realize and reach to the level of awareness. Thus far, it is undeniable that the huge number of studies had been focused on economic and monetary impacts of tourism and less attended to the spiritual concepts of it. This qualitative research investigates on re-defining and clarifying of the spirituality concept through tourism and complements the achievements by analyzing the English and Persian literature aligning with interviews of experts in this field. The results of the research illustrate the tourism influence on the expansion of spiritual aspects in tourists’ lives and the conceptual framework classifies the findings through main factors and sub factors of spirituality in tourism.