Abstract
Since urban space is one of the important places that tourism takes place, in order to create stability in tourism, the interaction between tourism planning and urban sustainable development should be investigated with regard to cultural elements. Lifestyle is derived from culture as a social phenomenon and affects it and is a reflection of human thoughts in relation with behavior, ethics and culture. Therefore, this aim of this research is to investigate the role of lifestyle in urban tourism sustainable development in Esfahan city, the third most populous city in Iran. This research’s goal is Practical and developmental and about the origin and method, it is descriptive, analytical and casual that has been done in a field research method. The statistical populations of this research are: tourism custodians, tourism experts, national tourists who have travelled to Esfahan city and local residents of all 15 municipal districts of the city. Simple random sampling method was utilized and 838 questionnaires were gathered from 4 statistical populations. In order to analyze the data, factor analysis test was utilized by smart PLS software. The results show that there are meaningful connections among the variables “lifestyle”, “sustainable development” and “urban tourism”. The most frequent factor that was selected by respondents for the concept of lifestyle in the statistical population was sociocultural factor (such as: visiting relatives and friends and attending soirees, traditional foods and drinks festivals, the desirability of Esfahan city in order to spend leisure time, the willingness toward group entertainment). For the concept “urban tourism”, all the populations chose urban texture significantly (such as: revival of workshops for producing traditional clothes, hand-made attractions, systematizing historical areas, developing sidewalk routes, constructing modern entertaining centers and systematizing landscapes and providing equipment for parks). About the sustainable development and its multi-dimensional nature, however, different factors were selected by respondents which in order of importance and frequency are economic, environmental, urban management, sociocultural, urban texture and political factors. Among the recommendations, a few can be stated: arranging cultural plans with a focus on soiree and elders’ reunions, holding traditional and religious festivals in different parts of the city, improving the condition of the existing theme parks and diversifying leisure and entertainment facilities of Esfahan city and pitching in municipal management and being parallel with plans of different organization in city. Especially by mayoralty as a trustee for city and cultural heritage could be mentioned as a tourism trustee.
Highlights
Nowadays tourism is regarded as one of the most dynamic activities involved in the socioeconomic development around the world and its importance is still increasing. (Seifoddini, 2010; Hezarjaribi & Najafi, 2012; Lotfi Khachaki, 2008) It has increased the awareness of societies over the lifestyles of other societies and as the result, the cultures of different nations are closer and this is why cultural tourism, one of the closest elements attached to the culture, has a faster growth in comparison to the rate of the tourism growth in the world (Nikbin, 2012)
The results show that there are meaningful connections among the variables “lifestyle”, “sustainable development” and “urban tourism”
Main variables that are used in this research are: Lifestyle (“Relatively harmonious set of all behaviors and activities of a given individual in the course of everyday life which involves a set of habits and orientations and has a kind of unity.” (Giddens, 2009)), tourism sustainable development (“Responding to the needs of tourists and the host society of the present time, while the opportunities for the generations should be preserved and intensified.” (Rodriguez & colleagues, 2014)) And urban tourism (visiting cities which aim is to visit places of interest, shop, trade, and have pleasure, leisure and entertainment.” (Smith & colleagues, 2012))
Summary
Nowadays tourism is regarded as one of the most dynamic activities involved in the socioeconomic development around the world and its importance is still increasing. (Seifoddini, 2010; Hezarjaribi & Najafi, 2012; Lotfi Khachaki, 2008) It has increased the awareness of societies over the lifestyles of other societies and as the result, the cultures of different nations are closer and this is why cultural tourism, one of the closest elements attached to the culture, has a faster growth in comparison to the rate of the tourism growth in the world (Nikbin, 2012). People’s lifestyle is one of the factors that have a considerable influence on their behavior in interaction with tourism environment and indexes related to the environment development. Researchers Woodside and Pitts studied the effects of tourists’ lifestyle, demographic characteristics and travelling activities on individuals’ behavior in domestic and international travels. They discovered that data related to the lifestyle are more important than demographic characteristics in prediction of travelling behavior of the tourists in domestic and international travels which itself can affect many of development indexes. Veal in 1991 brought this concept to leisure studies He believes,” Lifestyle is a personal pattern added to characteristics of personal or collaborative social behavior.’’ (Lee & colleagues, 2015; Rabbani & Shiri, 2009)
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