Explaining inequality in the development of the tourism industry with emphasis on Iran Extended Abstract

This paper has a philosophical and epistemological view to examine inequality in tourism development and studies and debates the underlying perspectives and paradigms for exploration of weaknesses of tourism knowledge and studies necessity of methodological change in this field. For achievement to goal of this paper based on studying of inequalities in development of the tourism industry and to understand the effects of tourism in Iran, critical realism is a combination of agency and structure, suggests a distinctive approach to inequality study in the tourism industry in Iran.
The growing synergy of tourism and culture has been one of the major themes in tourism development and marketing in recent years. The tourism industry, one of the fastest growing at the global scale, generates jobs and income especially in those layers of the job market that are most severely disadvantaged by economic conjuncture of variables including non-specialised work, reputedly low-skills part-time jobs and female work. By investing in cultural attractions and infrastructure, cities seek to secure a niche position in the international tourism map, developing an industry that is sustainable and plentiful in synergies with other strategic sectors of the urban economy. By investing in cultural attractions and infrastructure, cities seek to secure a niche position in the international tourism map, developing an industry that is sustainable and plentiful in synergies with other strategic sectors of the urban economy. Tourism also represents an indispensable source of financial resources for the preservation and restoration of the heritage that otherwise faces shrinking budgets and state transfers.
According to cultural statue of Iran, Iran has to attention to tourism policy-making in the level of national and regional as well. The main goal of this paper is studying the role of tourism policies in inequlities in tourism industry. The central issue is: urban Manage with using of tools of development planning, by expansion of social justice for all populations can help the growth and improvement of tourism sector to increase economy growth rate.
MethodologyCritical realism presents a methodological perspective which takes a critical stance towards positivism and hermeneutics on the one hand and tries to integrate strong points from both theories of science on the other hand. Contemporary critical realism is formulated by Roy Bhaskar and his like-minded circle of British colleagues. If we take explanation to be the core purpose of science critical realism seems to emphasise thinking instead of experiencing, and especially the process of abstraction from the domains of the actual and the empirical world to the transfactual mechanisms of the real world. This kind of thinking made Bhaskar talking about ‘transcendental realism’ in his early writings, emphasising the crossing of the divide between the empirical and the speculative activities of scientific work. This is so because the experienced world of events is not explainable in terms of the empirical facts, but only by way of incorporating non-experienced mechanisms incorporated in objects which may be within or outside our domain of investigation.
In this study, relationships between agents that are producer of result of development classified based on critical realism into two categories and three levels: mechanisms or policies for tourism (the real) provides guidelines for the tourism industry, and agents and stakeholders (the actual), that instructions in different ways to produce different results that have already been experienced in cities (the empirical) explain.
Results and DiscussionThis shows that Positivistic Approches in study of tourism inequlities in Iran ignore participation of stakeholder groups in urban policy and considers governmental power as a referee for several stakeholder groups and ignore great sociospatial forces that act locally as well. In this respect, these approaches ignores economic-political processes and structures and slures formal and informal relations between governmental and non-governmental actors in preparing urban tourism planning politically, since such agents reflect dominant forms of economic and social inequalities and reproduce inequlity in nature of tourism spaces.
To borrow useful ideas from three explanatory paradigms, it is clear that a comprehensive explanatory theory can be created that can simultaneously met experimental, interpretational and structural aspects. With the proper combination of these three approaches, critical realism can achieve their merits based on the integration.
The relation between of actors who produce result of development categories on the basis of critical realism: 1) mechanisms and policies of tourism in national level (Real) suggest agendas in tourism industry; 2) stakeholders in local level (Actual), who suggest agendas in defferent ways for producing various results, which experience in cities at now. Cities play an intermediate role between wider national policies and their results in local level.
There is close relation between tourism activities and geographical places in their historical background. Since 1977, tourism in Iran has changed for reflecting decisions of authorities in cities on framework of government’s policies.
ConclusionNo doubt, plans and policies for national development (the real) has played considerable role in development procedure after and before Islamic Revolution in our country. On the other hand, it needs to more serious attention to importance of participation (the actual) in nature of developmental plans that can be effective in change on life people. In this paper, development plans and policies are as an example of social mechanisms in realistic approach and be discuss about values of sustainable tourism with philosophical and epistemological assistance of tourism. This study is based on the idea that opportunity from policies of tourism development has potentials to maximize products and other needed elements to promote sustainable tourism. We conclude by arguing that cities aspiring at becoming international destinations for cultural tourism should not neglect the quality of human capital and training, not only in the lower grades of the job market but also for tourist entrepreneurs and public and private managers.
With regard to the raised issues in this paper, the desired pattern of inequality in the tourism industry for Iran's society is sustainable critical tourism model and policy-making and planning should be done in this Framework.