نشریه مطالعات مدیریت گردشگری
پیاپی 49 (بهار 1399)

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.

Along with the influence of the Internet and the dramatic advances in the use of information technology in businesses, a new concept has been introduced in the tourism literature called smart tourism destinations. Although studies have been conducted in this area in recent years, the research process is not clear due to the short time of introduction and development of this technology. In addition, the synthesis of knowledge has not been done in order to draw conclusions about the evolutionary nature of this issue and to develop its theories. This study used the paradigm funnel method to fill this gap and investigate the research. For this purpose, 105 articles were reviewed from 2000 to 2017, and after selecting articles, 34 articles were identified and classified. The findings indicate the focus of the articles is on the level of specific theories and the lack of articles in the field of ontology and basic hypotheses. This study will help researchers to better understand the conducted research process, to get acquainted with the concepts and components, and to identify the existing research gap.

The competitiveness of geotourism destinations depends on a number of factors, including resources, demand conditions, management, and destination marketing. A comprehensive model for geotourism destination competition in the world has not yet been developed and the native model of competitiveness of tourism destination in Iran has not been considered by researchers so far. The purpose of this study is to determine the competitiveness factors of geotourism destinations in Iran. The research method is qualitative and sequential exploratory. Using multiple resource alignment methods consisting of three sides: a) collecting theoretical foundations, infrastructural principles related to the research variable, b) research conducted in the field of competitiveness, and c) surveying the opinions of key experts, geotourism destination competitiveness factors were developed. The main indicators are formulated in three dimensions of competitive assets, competitiveness process, and competitive environment. The competitive assets dimension include the components of attractions, location, available facilities, supportive factors; the process of competitiveness dimension includes components of policymaking and planning, education and research, destination development and infrastructure improvement, destination marketing and management, protection and control, destination operations and branding, and the competitive environment dimension includes the components of external environmental conditions and factors affecting consumer demand. The results indicate that the competitiveness indicators of geotourism destination in Iran can cause a change in attracting tourists and maintaining and sustaining the sustainable development of Iran's tourism at the national and international levels in the current highly competitive conditions.

lthough much research has been done on destination branding, the study of destination personality remains limited. The purpose of this study is to investigate the destination personality of Iran and to examine the relationship between destination personality and behavioral intentions of international tourists using the Aaker model (1997). The statistical population of this study is Iran’s international inbound tourists. The research questionnaire was distributed randomly among sample members. From a total of 420 questionnaires, 407 questionnaires were analyzed. The findings of the exploratory factor analysis and multivariate regression analysis indicate that tourists ascribe personality characteristics to destinations and that the perceived destination personality of Iran in the eyes of international tourists has three dimensions: hospitality and culture, sincerity, and vibrant.

Traditional sports festivals as the most prominent symbol of cultural values have become the newest tourism opportunity in the last decade. Therefore, this study aims to design a qualitative tourism model of traditional festivals based on Grounded Theory strategy. The research structure is of the exploratory type, which has a qualitative approach. The qualitative research population consisted of 35 experts and specialists active in sports tourism organizations and informed residents of the host communities, who were selected by targeted sampling and based on judgmental sampling. To collect data, semi-structured interviews, and the formation of a focus group were used. After the initial coding of concepts and classification of categories, eight components were identified in the form of human potentials and natural-sports potentials among which, according to the frequency of the registered codes and the statements of the focus group, the most important features of the present study were the holding of traditional festivals and the opportunity to display and exchange cultural values of the host communities. Therefore, using local festivals as a tool for tourism development is a new and efficient approach. Thus, according to the current research model, by emphasizing the cultural values of traditional sports festivals, these places can be considered as the top hub of traditional sports festivals.

The purpose of this study is an investigation of the impact of each dimension of perceived quality of urban transportation services in Isfahan on the satisfaction of domestic tourists. In terms of purpose this is applied research and in terms of method, this is descriptive-correlative research. The present study is a combination of library and field research. The statistical population of the study consisted of domestic tourists of Isfahan on Nowruz 2017. The inclusion criterion was the usage of urban transportation. In order to collect data, the convenience sampling method was used. The results showed that to achieve tourist satisfaction it is necessary to increase the quality of services. It was also found that tourists are not satisfied with the urban transportation of Isfahan in any dimension. Therefore, according to the impact of different dimensions of service quality on tourist satisfaction, it is necessary to focus on improving responsiveness, empathy, reliability, tangible items, economic efficiency, and guarantee, respectively.

The present study has been performed to assess the urban tourism sustainable drivers in Ahvaz city using the descriptive-analytical methodology. Regarding the main object of the study, two secondary objectives of recognizing the priority of using tourism sustainability drivers and recognizing the impact of drivers on the sustainability of urban tourism in Ahvaz have been followed in the research process. For data collection by surveying methods, the opinions of 30 experts related to the field of research have been gathered using a questionnaire. To analyze the priority of drivers, Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network (MPNN) approach, and to analyze the effects of drivers on the sustainability process of urban tourism in Ahvaz, linear regression analysis (R-Linear), logarithmic (R-Logarithmic) and logistics (R-Logistic) has been used. The results show that according to the results of regression models, except for economic and social sustainability drivers, other drivers do not affect the sustainability process of Ahvaz urban tourism. On the other hand, the results of the neural network approach indicate that political sustainability driver, based on the opinion of experts with a significance of 0.235, has a higher priority to improve conditions and create conditions for sustainability in urban tourism in Ahvaz.

Today, consumer emotional arousal has become very popular among marketers. It is widely accepted that people’s old memories can serve as an excellent tool to sell products to them. Advertising experts have always tried to tie their products to the memories of simple and relaxing days of people.  The places and their advertisement are not an exception. The importance of creating and maintaining a distinct environment is growing among tourism researchers and managers and is considered as a key factor in attracting and satisfying customers as well as increasing financial performance by maximizing revenue and market share in the tourism industry. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the effect of perceived nostalgia on place attachment. Research

in terms of purpose this research is applied and in terms of method it is descriptive-survey. A questionnaire was used for data collection in which 302 customers of “Sini Por” traditional restaurant were analyzed using structural equations technique and Smart PLS software.

Religious travels play a significant role in tourism, and the optimal connection between spirituality and commercialization of the brand of religious tourism destinations should be guided by a comprehensive analysis of the stakeholders’ interests. The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between spirituality and commercialization of religious tourism brand in Mashhad, using the qualitative approach and grounded theory. Data collection was based on theoretical foundations, the study of upstream documents, and conducted deep, open, semi-structured interviews with experts that were selected purposefully. To analyze the data, a continuous comparison method has been used during three stages of open, axial, and selective coding. The results showed that 153 concepts in the interaction of spirituality and the brand commercialization exist in 5 contextual categories, 5 casual categories, 3 intervention categories, 3 strategic categories, 10 consequence categories and 3 categories of (inconsistency of national macro-measures with the interests of urban stakeholders, intra-organizational and inter-organizational conflict and partial optimization) as barriers to the implementation of strategies.

Companies working in a competitive environment are increasingly facing challenges in attracting and retaining customers. In this regard, companies try to create superior value for customers compared to competitors and in return, expect customers to participate in creating value for the company. But customers are different and use different relational models to interact with companies, which affect the amount and type of engagement they make in creating value for companies. Therefore, in the present article, we look at the extent to which customer relational models influence their engagement in creating value for hotels, and each customer involved in the creation of what kind of value. To this end, loyal customers of five-star hotels in the northwest of the country were selected as the statistical population and 533 customers participated in the research by completing the questionnaire. A convenience sampling method was used to select the statistical sample. In terms of the aim of the research, this is applied research and in terms of methodology, this is casual research. The research hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling technique and AMOS software. Findings show that customers who use a non-social relational model in their interaction with the hotel participate in creating three types of value (lifetime value, influence value, and knowledge value) for the hotel and customers with relational models of communal sharing and equality matching create value for the hotel, through knowledge and impact on others respectively in addition to providing a lifetime value. Ultimately, customers with market pricing models create value for the hotel only by offering their lifetime value.