Analyzing the Utility of Traditional Quarters of Kashan and their Relation to the Tourists’ Satisfaction

In line with his quest to achieve purposes such as becoming familiar with the historical realities of the past, utilizing natural resources, and escaping from life routines, modern man regards tourism as a proper tool that transforms humans’ way of life whilst playing a significant role in employment as one of the most profitable industries. Regardless of travelers’ intention or destination, they need a place to stay and rest; consequently, hotels are important, effective parts of the tourism industry in a variety of forms in terms of building structure such as hotels, apartment hotels, motels, inns, villas, local houses, camps, etc. These services are considered as the secondary needs in the tourism sector required by any tourist city or place. Proper designs can be considered as tourist attractions which, in turn, plays significant role in increasing tourists’ duration of stay. Because of the diverse financial and diversity of tourists, the city needs a variety of hotels in varying degrees, which can play a major role in satisfying tourists with principled investment. The city of Kashan has unique geographic and historical conditions, rituals and special occasions, such as rosewater extraction industry and hundreds of other attractions. In recent years, renovations, restoration and conversion of them to traditional residences have been carried out in the private sector in the field of tourism development, responding to the needs of residents of tourists. Given the fact that traditional residences have a significant number of tourist resorts in Kashan City, the need for an assessment of the desirability and quality of this type of residence is essential. In this research, it has been attempted to study the utility of old houses for changing the use of traditional residences from economic, socio-cultural, managerial-service, physical, functional aspects, access and infrastructure, facilities and equipment. In the following, the effect of the desirability of traditional residences on the satisfaction of tourists has been evaluated.

The following are the most important studies conducted on examining the relation between the extent of the utility of accommodations and tourists’ level of satisfaction:In his study of the role of old houses in tourism development of Tabriz city, Sharifi (2012) argues that in case the old houses of Tabriz are renovated via suitable operations along with a proper change of use, then it would lead to tourism development in the city. Sarlak and Mehdizadeh (2014) compared the sense of place between modern hotels and inns located in historical sites. The survey conducted between Amir Kabir five-star hotel of Arak and traditional inns of Arg Gogad located in Golpayegan showed the interest to return to the traditional location in more than 55% of travelers. In his evaluation and analysis of the quality of services in traditional hotels using importance-performance analysis tools through the views of domestics tourists in Yazd traditional hotels, Assaadi, Azar, and Naghavi (2015) identified 7 effective factors on the quality of services in traditional hotels: physical facilities, sports and recreation facilities, traditional food and drinks, staff behavior, health, traditional inner spaces, response system, and service provision.Foreign researchers have also studied the problem of tourist accommodations; Chou et al. (2008) investigated the multi-criteria fuzzy decision-making model for choosing a location for international hotels. In this study, 21 criteria were employed to identify a location for an international tourism hotel in Taiwan in order to demonstrate the calculation procedure and the effect of fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making system proposed in the paper. Mohajerani and Miremadi (2012) examined customer satisfaction model in the hotel industry in the case of Kish Island, Iran. The results demonstrated a significant correlation between mental image, customer expectations, quality of services, perceived value, and customer faithfulness. According to the results of both domestic and foreign studies, it is apparent that researchers have examined and analyzed the subject through a variety of different approaches. However, there has been no studies on the area of quality analysis and explanation of the utility of traditional accommodations in Kashan and its role on tourist satisfaction. Following the examination of the related literature, the present study seeks to conduct such a study for the first time in Kashan using as systematic approach whilst taking into account the mechanism of the effect of tourists’ satisfaction over such services.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the desirability of traditional residences in Kashan and its impact on the satisfaction of urban tourists. The collected data were analyzed using a questionnaire using SPSS software and were presented as a model using Amos software. The number of questionnaires (sample size) was calculated using the Cochran formula of 310 people and were distributed randomly among the tourists who stayed in or visited the traditional residences of Kashan. The research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire. The first part of the questionnaire identifies respondents with 13 general categories of descriptive information. The second part is designed to define the operational variables of the research. The independent variable of the research includes the desirability of traditional residences in Kashan City, which has been evaluated using 47 items. The dependent variable is the satisfaction of the tourists, which is evaluated with 4 items. To ensure the validity of the research tool, the questionnaires were provided to university faculties, tourism experts and hotel directors and tourism agencies. To determine the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used. The alpha coefficient in this research is calculated to be 0.906.

Research results show that 57% of male participants and 43% are women. More particularly, 68% were married and 32% were single. Answers about how to get acquainted with Kashan's residences show that 59% of tourists were recommend by friends, 21% via the Internet, 8% by their purchased tour packages in Kashan. The structural equation modeling capabilities were used to identify the factors explaining the desirability of traditional Kashan residences. The six indicators that affect the utility of residences include facilities and access infrastructure, managerial services, physical, functional, socio-cultural and economic perspectives. The index of facilities and equipment in traditional residences with a factor of 0.99 is the most effective factor in explaining the desirability of traditional residences. Finally, the research model shows that the desirable effect of traditional residences on the satisfaction of tourists with factor load is 0.64 and the significance level of zero is confirmed. It can be stated that there is a direct and significant direct relationship between the independent variables of the desirability of traditional residences and the satisfaction of tourists. Therefore, the tourist satisfaction increases as the desirability of traditional residences increases.

This research was conducted to identify the desirable dimensions of traditional residences and its effect on the satisfaction of tourists. Factor load of 0.99 for equipment indicators indicates that the factor has the highest impact on the satisfaction of tourists using traditional residences. Subsequently, indices including access, infrastructure, and management-services had significant effects on explaining the utility of traditional accommodations. As the final significant index, the economic latent variable index set had the lowest correlation with the utility of traditional accommodations; the quality of services and equipment was more important to the tourists. The results of the study by Feyz et al. (2013) showed that the price factor was less important compared to other effective factors. The significant factor of the presence of narrow alleyways with a regression weigh value of 0.37 suggest that as opposed to the locals who regard the index as a factor that reduces the local population in the old urban texture, it has not been the case according to the tourists. Furthermore the utility of traditional accommodations are enforced by factors such as the sense of identity, higher levels of interaction with the locals and sense of security, interest in experiencing traditional life, local cousins, use of handmade crafts to decorate accommodations and the affordability of service prices. The obtained significant roles of the entire examined factors in tourist satisfaction are in line with the results of studies by Sohrabi et al. (2013) and Assaadi et al. (2017) in terms of explaining cost and price criteria, facilities, and services. The significance of the effect of traditional accommodations’ utility on tourist satisfaction was confirmed with a value of 0.64 and significance level of zero. This also complies with the results of the study by Sahrifi (2012) on the role of old houses in Tabriz in tourism development.