نشریه مطالعات مدیریت گردشگری
پیاپی 15 (بهار و تابستان 1390)

The main objective of this research is to recognize the important factors of winter tourists’ satisfaction, with emphasis on ski resorts’ attributes. One of the most important requirements of successful tourism development is the tourists’ satisfaction as a main component of tourism system. Tourism development without awareness of tourists’ satisfaction is not possible. Winter tourism as a seasonal phenomenon has been growing in the recent years all over the world. Some attributes of winter tourism makes it different from other types of tourism, as a result, tourists’ expectations and perceived qualities are evaluated separately. Our research areas are two ski resorts located in Shemshak and Darbansar villages in the vicinity of Tehran. This study is a descriptive- analytic research and the data was collected using a self-structured questionnaire. The sample population of the research were ski tourists who visited these pistes in Esfand (20Feb - 20Mar) 1389, out of whom 150 people were randomly chosen. The method employed for measuring satisfaction of tourists was Structural Equation. Results indicate that tourists are satisfied with these destinations but this satisfaction is more due to the personal enthusiasm for ski and the area’s attributes, rather than a proper provision of supplies.

Tour guides are frontline employees in the tourism industry who play an important role in providing informative and new experiences for tourists seeking exotic destinations like Iran. Success of the tourism industry very much depends on the performance of tour guides in each destination. Despite the importance of tour guiding in delivering a satisfied tour experience for package tourist, it has not attracted much of scholarly attention in the tourism discipline. Little research has been carried out in order to systematically examine the performance of tour guides throughout the world. This present research is aimed specifically at the assessment of attributes and performance parameters of tour guides in Iran. The evaluation here is based on the application of importance-performance analysis (IPA) factor as related to data assembled from incoming tours from European countries. IPA is a simple and useful technique in prioritizing decision options and resource allocation for an organization based on its product or service attributes. In this research, initially a list of all relevant tour guide attributes was documented based on an intensive literature review. After collating this data with advice obtained from well-informed experts including academics, tour operators, tour guides and officials from Iran’s Tourism Organization, and the Iranian Tour Guides Association, 31 relevant attributes were chosen. The next stage of this research required collection of tourists’ assessments of the relative importance of the tour guides’ attributes as expressed in the questionnaires provided for them, as well as the performance of their Iranian tour guides in these attributes. Data were collected in Tehran, from April to October 2010 at the end of their tours. A total of 270 copies of questionnaire were distributed between European tourists who travel in package tours to Iran. Among the returned questionnaires, 142 questionnaires were deemed complete and usable. The cronbach's alpha of all performance & importance questions was. 95.The rating of their individual Iranian guides incorporated the use of the 5 point Likert scale and the IPA matrix was used to quantify tour guides’ strengths and weaknesses based on the chosen attributes. The results of the IPA data indicate that for European tourists the Iranian tour guides performed well in attributes including, politeness, sense of humor, cooperation with other services staff, a good knowledge of the cultural and historical aspects of the tours, the respect paid to the customers, etc. The results also indicated that tour guides in Iran should aim to improve their proficiency in the guiding language, problem solving, flexibility, interpretation between tourists and the local people they meet, an in depth knowledge of the various destinations visited and of the planned routes, presenting brief information and abilities in good presentation skills. The results of this research illustrate that use of the IPA model can be an effective managerial tool in its application to the evaluation of Iranian guides. Based on the identification of their strengths and weaknesses the results will assist practitioners with the allocation of resources to be effective in the improvement of the Iranian tour guiding service.

This article is about the capability of urban tourism development in central district of Tehran with the urban management approach, dealing with a primary question about evaluation of urban tourism development capabilities of city-central districts and secondary questions about traits and capabilities of central district of Tehran. This research is a qualitative study, using “grounded theory” method as a tool for gathering and analysis of the data. Data has been collected through deep interviews and field observations. Our sample study is comprised of 31 urban actives that were selected by means of aimed sampling in four groups: state section, private section, public section, and citizens. Results drawn from the paradigm model show that urban tourism in central district of Tehran has not been developed enough to fulfill its capabilities. The Solution proposed is changing the economic central district to cultural central district. In this paper the present position of central district of Tehran and its probable ideal position have been shown in a three-dimensional model; and a pattern composed of both culture-based and economics-based tourism development has been recognized as a suitable pattern for actualizing tourism development potentials in central district of Tehran.

This research aims to analyze the influence of leisure spaces such as Bheheshte madaran on various aspects of women’s leisure time including ways of spending this time, hours devoted to leisure activities, reasons of doing so etc., and also assess their level of satisfaction with and contribution to such places. The aforementioned park was established as the first park especially meant for women. Since there is not much research done in this field, this research can be a starting point in the study of these spaces. At first the information was gathered through librarian methods and secondary sources. Afterwards, 93 park-users were interviewed through questionnaires. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS, and then through Phi- Kramer, and Spearman tests the relationship of some variants such as age, education, and job, with women’s leisure time were investigated and their significances were discussed. Results revealed satisfaction of women with establishing of similar parks; and the performance of this park was generally evaluated as positive. Furthermore, outcomes demonstrated a significant relationship between the education level and the leisure time hours. In general, given the satisfaction of women with these kinds of spaces, this type of park can be considered as a paradigm for spaces especial for women in the Islamic countries and can work as an inducer to more effective way of spending leisure time and more cooperation in leisure activities. Needless to say, provision of activities that are effective for women in these parks is an issue authorities should attend to.

The main purpose of this study is to analyze the relationships among information sources, destination image and destination choice decisions of potential travelers. A conceptual model was generated on the basis of literature review in which five hypotheses were proposed. Research instrument administrated in the English language was used for this study. Data analysis was conducted in two stages. First, exploratory factor analyses using principal component method with Varimax rotation were conducted on destination image and information sources to examine their dimensionalities and psychometric properties. In the second stage, multiple regressions were used to test hypothesized relationships among all image factors, information sources and choice of Iran as a tourism destination. All of these procedures were performed using SPSS 17. The results confirmed that information sources have a significantly positive effect on destination image and choice decisions. The theoretical and managerial implications were drawn on the study findings.

Tourism locations are required to develop a general management plan that is consistent with visitor carrying capacities. This paper describes a carrying capacity modeling system that allows regions’ tourism managers to quantitatively determine whether the current state of a region’s tourism condition is in compliance with those standards or not. The modeling system uses an ex-post adaptive monuments management (AMM) model to determine whether the current state of a tourism region complies with the physical and social carrying capacities. Also the manager requires knowledge of the tourism carrying capacity, which in this article is determined by the use of physical, real and effective carrying capacities. The multiple attribute scoring test of capacity (MASTEC) identifies the best management action for achieving compliance. The AMM model addresses potential errors that can occur when inferring a monument state from resource/social conditions. The AMM model minimizes the likelihood of such decision errors by using Bayes’ rule to determine the state of tourism regions. The MASTEC method allows a manager to identify the best management action for bringing an incompliant monument into compliance with carrying capacities. Limits of Acceptable Change and Visitor Impact Management, and multiple attribute decision making maximizes the manager’s expected utility function subject to stochastic carrying capacity. Anahita Temple was selected to showcase the usage of these models. Several factors limit the ability of tourism regions to implement the carrying capacity modeling system. Using a spatial decision support tool to implement the modeling system lessens some of these limitations.

Given the importance of tourism industries and the revenues that can be imported to developing countries, in this current study, we have investigated the effect of tourism revenue on economic growth of D8 Islamic countries. For this purpose, we use panel data method with fixed and random effects estimator, during 1995-2006. The results show that the revenues from tourism have the positive and significant effect on economic growth of these countries. Also the effect of other variables, such as labor force, share of export to GDP, human capital and gross fixed capital formation on economic growth are positive and statistically significant. Hence we suggested that D8 countries increase investment in tourism industries and provide facilities to attract tourism.