Using the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) to Map Mashhad Religious Tourism Brand

Religious tourism was one of the oldest and most popular types of tourism in the world and the holy city of Mashhad is the most important religious tourism hub in Iran due to the holy shrine of Imam Reza. Therefore, with the aim of deep understanding of the religious tourism brand of Mashhad, through the cognitive approach and interview-centric approach of the ZMET technique, the cognitive structures of tourists in Mashhad were examined and analyzed to extract the mental map of tourists towards the city of Mashhad. In this regard, 11 students of Allameh Tabatabai University who traveled to Mashhad and had a high level of mental conflict with this city were interviewed. 22 constructs were integrated into the consensus map. The constructs of "Imam Reza Shrine", "Tourist City", "Religious City", "Shopping Centers", "Recreation Centers" and "Hotel" were the main and basic constructs. The most frequent basic construct that had the most contact with the Mashhad brand was the Imam Reza shrine, which was associated with a "feeling of peace" in people. Among the negative construct about the Mashhad brand were "lack of sea" and "extortion and selling counterfeit goods", which were related to the basic constructs of the tourist city and shopping centers, respectively.