Tourism In Iran Research Articles

Factors Affecting the Attraction of Medical Tourists in Iran

Medical tourism is a new form of tourism that has seen increasing growth in recent years as an economic activity based on business services that link the two fields of medicine and tourism. Two of the most important issues to be considered in this regard are the marketing of medical tourism and the advantage of the relative competitive advantage. Therefore, the identification and prioritization of factors affecting the attraction of medical tourists might help to improve the quality and quantity of this new industry not only in Iran, but also in the world. From the viewpoint of academic experts in the field of tourism and medical tourism, physicians, hospital managers, and medical tourists, medical tourism in Iran is affected by service and welfare factors, advertising factors, physical factors, political and geographical factors, and human factors, respectively.

The economic impact of the lifting of sanctions on tourism in Iran: a computable general equilibrium analysis

The imposition of sanctions on Iran, after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, resulted in economic hardship. Many problems were experienced, such as increased unemployment and high inflation, currency fluctuations and economic instability. One area that was hard hit was the tourism sector. With the lifting of United Nations sanctions on 16 January 2016, there is an opportunity for an increase in international tourists to experience the natural attractions and cultural heritage that Iran has to offer. This research employs a single-country multi-sector computable general equilibrium model to estimate the economic impact of the lifting of sanctions to tourism and the wider economy in Iran. The findings reveal that tourism provides a boost to the economy; however, there are redistributive effects that draw resources away from other export sectors. However, just as in the past where there has been a heavy reliance on oil and natural gas, expanding tourism too quickly will also cause problems. Moderate tourism growth would be the appropriate sustainable path to take.

Identifying and Prioritizing Barriers to Health Tourism Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process

Introduction: Iran offers many advantages for health tourism, e.g., low costs, high quality healthcare, qualified doctors, and abundant natural attractions, but there are also obstacles to the development of health tourism in Iran. This study aimed to identify and prioritize the barriers to health tourism in hospitals affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the first 6 months of 2016. Six main components were identified based on experts’ opinions; then, based on these components, a questionnaire for pairwise comparison was produced and completed by the same experts. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model was used to prioritize the identified factors.Results: Results showed that among the barriers to health tourism in the investigated hospitals, the most important obstacle is the unfamiliarity of medical staff with foreign languages with a weight of 0.268. Lack of manpower and inappropriate physical were ranked second and third in priority with weights of 0.214 and 0.157, respectively.Conclusion: Considering the available capacities and potentials, effective and impressive steps can be taken to economically develop the medical tourism industry in Iran.

Interpretive approach to applied archaeology and its status in Iran

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present an approach to applied archaeology and interpretive methods for Iranian traditional archaeology. Applied archaeology is based on a holistic approach providing rational approaches in the field of cultural heritage preservation and sustainable use of the potential of cultural heritage with the participation of the people. This paper aims to create social good standing archaeology knowledge with respect to Iranian archaeology experts.Design/methodology/approachIn this survey study, data collection was accomplished using a questionnaire. The sample consists of professors, PhD students, post-graduate fellows, and educated experts of the Iranian Tourism, Handicrafts and Cultural Heritage Organization.FindingsApplied archaeology as a provider of situations, positions and employment opportunities for archaeologists has not been considered seriously in the Iranian archaeological education. Traditional education emphasizes the cultural history and field techniques; hence it does not consist of critical areas of heritage codes, protection and budget management, business skill and the most important, interpretation and consequently sustainable development. Iranian archaeologists agree with the findings of the applied archaeology. Evaluation of their opinions reveals that they agree with all applied archaeology items of the questionnaire.Originality/valueAs an approach, applied archaeology can be proactive and improve the status of archaeology in the Iranian field of cultural heritage, and representations of outputs such as site-museum and sustainable use of them which ultimately fulfil social, economic and even political-identity purposes, then applied archaeology can be a constructive element in archaeology and prevent vandalism and looting in cultural heritage.

The Effective Spatial Qualities on Urban Tourism in Iran Focusing on Social Factors

Considering the increasing challenges of the current cities, the urban tourism has been proposed as a solution for solving or minimizing different problems. Including economic, social and environmental aspects, this approach can lead to the fulfillment of sustainable development theory. Accordingly, there is no doubt about the successful results of the urban tourism development and all urban managers and authorities agree on this point. Meanwhile, what threatens the success of the urban tourism development plans is to ignore the all effective factors that make effect on the quality of travel experience. In their best, the cities are projected in their public spaces, and any tourist spent a considerable part of his travel in such spaces. Thus the quality of urban spaces is an important factor on the successfulness of urban tourism development plans and hence their environmental desirability must be studied and evaluated more precise under a comprehensive approach. The main objective of this research is to answer the main question of how the effective spatial qualities on tourism are explain with regard to the social factors. Since the man and his activities are the base of the urban studies, this article uses an urban-strategic approach based on the descriptive-analytical method using library resources to study the social factors that are effective on the qualities of urban spaces. The analytical model of the research will be presented based on the theoretical studies. The results show that some qualities such as flexibility, functional diversity, physical diversity, vegetation, safety, lightening, landscape attractiveness, identity, and memorability in relation to the urban space, and social and arbitrary activities based on Gehl theory can make effect as the complementary factors of the urban tourism attraction and make effect on social factors such as vitality, sense of security, arbitrary activity, social activity and tourists sense of peace. Emphasizing on the social exchange theory, such factors can pave the way for the sustainability of urban tourism industry. The results of this research can be used in identifying and reinforcing the spatial qualities relating to the social factors that are effective on tourism in Iran. Consequently, they can be useful in the tourism development. The essential value of this article is its simultaneous focus on both spatial qualities (physical dimension) and social factors (human dimension) in relation to the tourism development. In this regard, the unidimensional attitude is rejected and the adaptation of a holistic approach to the urban tourism is highlighted.

Entrepreneurship development policymaking factors: An exploratory survey of tourism in Iran

Widespread presence of small and medium enterprise (SME) and entrepreneurial businesses (EB) as well as governments' key role in tourism sphere, especially in developing countries. As a result, the importance of policymaking in SME and EB has been growing through last decade. This study is trying to identify and prioritize the factors influencing SME and EB policy in Iran tourism scope. For this research, data were collected via exploratory mixed method in two steps. Firstly, qualitative techniques such as literature review has been done to find all scholarly work and then using qualitative content analysis, factors influencing SME policy in tourism has been identified. In second step, quantitative methods, namely survey and Statistical techniques were used for analysis. Population of this study comprised policymaking and tourism entrepreneurship experts of Iran. The survey results showed there were 40 variables into six factors under two main dimensions influence on SME and EB. Factors identified in this study can be used to formulate macro policies in the tourism industry and national policymakers can utilize these concepts for entrepreneurship and SME's development in tourism. This research contributes to the existing literature in the field of entrepreneurship policymaking by introduce a systematic framework. This new framework can provide better insights and inform thinking in the area of entrepreneurship policymaking.

An Evaluation of Aesthetic Attractiveness from the Tourists’ Viewpoints Based on the Used Techniques in Persepolis Site Museum

Persepolis site museum is one of the most important places in the field of tourism in Iran, which is in the list of UNESCO World Heritage and attracts many visitors from around the world every year. Therefore, making this complex attractive by means of various methods is very important. Hence, different techniques have been applied to make the complex more attractive and they are studied in this work. The main objective was to find a significant relationship between conveying the aesthetic value from the viewpoint of the audience through the techniques applied to convey the historical, visual, preserving and social values. In this regard, according to the results and variables of the study, some questionnaires were developed using the Likert Scale and were distributed among 400 visitors. This research is both quantitative and qualitative. Through the qualitative method the techniques applied to convey the values were assessed while through the quantitative method the SPSS software was used for inferential analysis of the variables and the Pearson correlation test and ANOVA were also used. The obtained results indicate that the techniques applied to convey the historical and visual values have a direct relationship with the aesthetic value. In addition, there is a reverse relationship between preservation methods and the aesthetic value, and the relationship between social value and aesthetic value is not significant. Accordingly, it might be said that aesthetically, the historical value and the originality which have caused the presence of visitors are hidden in Persepolis site museum and the applied techniques have not worked well. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n5p278

Qualitative Examination of Health Tourism and Its Challenges

Introduction: Health tourism refers to travel for the use of services that improve or promote the physical or psychological health of an individual in a location apart from their place of residence lasting over 24 hours. Health tourism provides a sizeable share of revenues derived from the health sector in some countries. The high potential for health tourism in Iran, especially in the city of Mashhad, the need to establish a groundwork for health tourism in Iran that cannot be overemphasized. Because the transfer of knowledge and theoretical and practical synthesis are underlying concerns, this study examined how health tourism knowledge is transferred and applied from the perspective of health tourism officials and academics. Methods: This study adopted a qualitative approach based on grounded theory. Data collection was conducted through purposeful sampling using in-depth and semi-structured individual interviews. The conversations were recorded and then transcribed verbatim and finally analyzed using Strauss and Corbin’s coding paradigm and constant comparative analysis. Results: The results of interviews with 16 participants from among hospital managers, university professors and tourism and health insurance managers yielded 100 initial codes, out of which 60 conceptual labels or preliminary codes for broader concepts were extracted after repeated modification to reach conceptual density. Conclusion: Three categories having several subcategories were derived from the responses of participants: the challenges and benefits of health tourism, human interaction and communication and the impact of international standards.

RISK ASSESSMENT IN TOURISM SYSTEM USING A FUZZY SET AND DOMINANCE-BASED ROUGH SET

The purpose of this study is to identify risks, discover rule base structure and the impact of risks by knowledge base system design in one of the Iran tourism destination. Based on tourism system approach, the factors of risks are divided in two dimensions: internal risks and external risks and seven criteria: political, economic, cultural-social, technological, environmental-health, functional and safe-security. Data were analyzed by fuzzy inference system and Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA) synthesizing to construction of forecasting risk assessment system. Tourists’ perspectives towards the possibilities of risks were first assessed within seven risk factors and converted into a systematic structure within the structure of rough sets. Designing of a fuzzy expert system was dealt with using the created knowledge database. Then, the system’s sensitivity analysis was examined. The results indicate that the system can be a good way to estimate the risks and their fluctuation rates and impacts on the development of tourism destinations. The technological, social, functional and safety-security risks had the highest values in the system designed for minimum travel repeatability. The research suggests that it is important impact of risks and their interaction with each other on the future development of tourism destination.

Iran’s Medical Tourism Development Model in Cardiac Surgery

Introduction: Since medical tourism is considered as an incremental activity in this sector and proper infrastructures in country to make medical tourism are lacking, announcement by authorities to provide perquisites of medical tourism to make the first clinic hotel and health town are necessary for the purpose of developing medical tourism in Iran, all of these side issues should be investigated. Methods: Cardiovascular diseases are very common because of pollution and industrial development. In this research, by extracting related studies on medical tourism and its localization, using Hospitals data bank and questionnaire of 640 medical tourists, only 528 of them were approved and finally by using IBM SPSS modular 14.1 software decision tree in data algorithm, efficiency and purity level were obtained. The method for data preprocess step is utilized to extract the best model. Two preprocess steps are deleting useless and correlated features, because data should be prepared until model has the least error. Results: Among the examined algorithm including C&RT, CHAID and Multiple Linear Regression, it was shown that C&RT has the optimal results. The results obtained from this research indicate that C&RT binary decision tree has the smallest error value (0.078) and the greatest accuracy value (0.922). Conclusion: In this research, first effective factors on heart medical tourism were investigated with the help of experts in this field, then C&RT and CHASID models using Clementine software and multiple linear regression variables were compared and ranked. With respect to this algorithm, personnel behavior, social security and communication variables are respectively the most important factors for medical tourist attraction.

Challenges and opportunities for tourism development in Iran: Perspectives of Iranian tourism suppliers

Iranian tourism industry – despite enormous potentials – has faced a number of challenges including wide ranging nuclear related sanctions, negative imagery in the west and lack of effective management of resources. The aim of this paper is to focus on the perspectives of Iranian tourism suppliers who have a crucial role in the development and success of the tourism industry in the country. The findings of this paper are based on interviews conducted in Iran with representatives of Iranian tourism suppliers from both the public and private sector. The analysis of these interviews suggests that tourism suppliers face two major challenges: (1) Iran's negative imagery in the West and (2) lack of resources to tackle this negative discourse. This paper also provides an overview of the potential future opportunities which the recently forged nuclear agreement could present for Iranian tourism suppliers.

The Analysis of the Impacts of Tourism on the Quality of Rural Life (Case Study: Uraman District of Sarvabad County

The Analysis of the Impacts of Tourism on the Quality of Rural Life (Case Study: Uraman District of Sarvabad County

A new dawn? The Iran nuclear deal and the future of the Iranian tourism industry

Iran's tourism industry has suffered significantly over the past three decades as a consequence of a number of issues, including negative imagery in the tourism generating markets, political tensions with the West as a result of Iran's nuclear programme and poor management. But perhaps one of the most important issues affecting tourism development in Iran has been the wide ranging and crippling international sanctions against Iran in relation to its nuclear programme. However, after more than a decade of negotiations, on 14 July 2015, Iran and the P5+1 finally reached a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear programme, which has given many, both inside and outside of Iran, the hope of a brighter future for the country. This paper aims to explore the possible impact of this agreement on the future development of the Iranian tourism industry.

Entrepreneurship development policymaking factors: An exploratory survey of tourism in Iran

Widespread presence of small and medium enterprise (SME) and entrepreneurial businesses (EB) as well as governments' key role in tourism sphere, especially in developing countries. As a result, the importance of policymaking in SME and EB has been growing through last decade. This study is trying to identify and prioritize the factors influencing SME and EB policy in Iran tourism scope. For this research, data were collected via exploratory mixed method in two steps. Firstly, qualitative techniques such as literature review has been done to find all scholarly work and then using qualitative content analysis, factors influencing SME policy in tourism has been identified. In second step, quantitative methods, namely survey and Statistical techniques were used for analysis. Population of this study comprised policymaking and tourism entrepreneurship experts of Iran. The survey results showed there were 40 variables into six factors under two main dimensions influence on SME and EB. Factors identified in this study can be used to formulate macro policies in the tourism industry and national policymakers can utilize these concepts for entrepreneurship and SME's development in tourism. This research contributes to the existing literature in the field of entrepreneurship policymaking by introduce a systematic framework. This new framework can provide better insights and inform thinking in the area of entrepreneurship policymaking.

Programming for development of tourism industry using case studies

AbstractThis is a research into the assessment of tourism industry quality and programing for its development in Iran. In a tough economic situation, the hypothesis is to grow and develop the national economy with the help of the tourism industry. A unified assessment of tourism industry quality, method is made use of in this study, which is based on the case study of all elements of Iran tourism industry system. Quality assessment by means of unified problems (indicators) that hinder the maximum development of the tourism industry shows the reliability of the hypothesis. SWOT analysis aided to determine the weaknesses and threats aiming at raising the quality of the indicators. In addition, a linear programming from the standpoint of internal and external relations with national economy has been applied. The analysis revealed that the system of the tourism industry is unable to assist the macro economy. The failure corresponds to scarcely favorable natural environmental conditions, capacity for motivatin...

Development Strategy of Health Tourism in Iran

Introduction: Iran has considerable potentials for growth of health tourism. However, they have not been properly realized towards national development. This paper has attempted to prioritize the development strategies of health tourism in Iran which has been conducted on the hospitals of Tehran. Methods: This study is a descriptive-analytical research. It was carried out in 2013 and the sample size was determined through snowball non-probability sampling. A questionnaire was administered to 29 participants and the development strategies were formulated by SWOT. Results : The findings of the research showed that the weakness points of the health tourism industry override the strength points. This is while the opportunities of development are more than threats. Conclusion: One may conclude that Iran’s health tourism is in a weakness opportunity (WO) situation and needs strategies which have been specially designed for such situations. Therefore, the improvement strategies (WO) have been located in priority for the development of health tourism in Iran.

The Effects of Service Performance of Hotel Customers on Quality of Experience and Brand Loyalty in Iran

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of service performance of hotel customers on the quality of experience and brand loyalty in Iran and also to propose a model for the hotel industry in Iran. Therefore, findings will contribute to the improvement of both hotel management and tourism industry in Iran. The present study obtained data from 302 international and local customers in four and five Star hotels in five major cities in Iran. This study will significantly contribute to the Iranian tourism market in seeking improvement towards the effectiveness of hotel customers and loyalty in Iran.

Empirical investigation of tourists' perceived psychic distance of Iran as a tourism destination

The aim of the current study was to investigate the perceived psychic distance of potentialtourists in relation to Iran as a tourism destination. The concept of psychic distance refersto perceived similarities/ differences between specific destination and tourist's homecountry. The members of couch-surfing virtual community participated in this study. Thestatistical data were collected by convenience sampling method. This study contributes tothe body of knowledge by identifying the dimensions of perceived psychic distance inrelation to Iran. The results of exploratory and confirmatory analysis indicated that thesedimensions include infrastructure, culture and legal distance. Furthermore, the result ofone sample t- test revealed that international tourists perceive high psychic distance inrelation to Iran as a tourism destination. In addition, the result of one-way varianceanalysis showed that tourists from ten of the world's regions perceived different levels ofpsychic distance in relation to Iran. Tourists from the Middle East region perceived lesspsychic distance compared to other regions. These findings have several managerialimplications. First, development of Iranian tourism industry requires planning to reduceperceived psychic distance in terms of infrastructure, culture and legal aspects. Second,based on the lower psychic distance which is perceived by tourists from the Middle East,the Iranian tourism policy-makers can consider the region as a more accessible targetmarket.

Analysis of Silk Road Tourism Development (Emphasizing On South Korea)

Abstract . In a research about “formation of Silk Road through security” (Case study: The works and findings of archeology regarding the road from Semnan to Garmsar), K. Niknami and M. Dahpahlavan came up with the following results: Undoubtedly, the governments and merchants have founded precise plans and transaction methods during the history to dominate Silk Road. Silk Road in its route, from the city of Shahroud to Caspi Gates (Eivankey) in Iran was as a narrow natural passageway, limited from the north to Alborz Mountains, and from the south to the Desert (Kavir). Studying historical texts, analyzing the ancient times and analyzing the strategic roles and importance of security in formation of roads, all indicate that natural bases and required facilities should have been provided for the environmental, physical, financial and commercial (transactions) securities for establishing an international connecting route. R. Sorour (2008) found the following results in a research about “Silk Road and its symbolic role in realization of the Islamic nations in the globalization era: Silk Road is the base of the oldest cultural, scientific and commercial exchanges and transactions in the history of East and West, and an effective factor in developing the relations between different nations as well as extending Iranian/Islamic culture. Due to its location within the mentioned cultural centers, the role of Iran is quite important and decisive that by benefiting from thousands of geographical, historical, archeological, scientific, cultural attractions etc. could have a great role in developing historical elaborations of the Islamic world and also realizing the Islamic nations union plan in the globalization era. E.Aliakbari (2012) came across the following results in a book “Iran tourism geography: Desert trips and participating in the tours for old caravans in apparently rough but beautiful environments are among the methods that could revive the desert regions (P: 54, 310).

Long-term trends in tourism climate index scores for 40 stations across Iran: the role of climate change and influence on tourism sustainability.

Tourism is a rapidly growing international sector and relies intrinsically on an amenable climate to attract visitors. Climate change is likely to influence the locations preferred by tourists and the time of year of peak travel. This study investigates the effect of climate change on the Tourism Climate Index (TCI) for Iran. The paper first calculates the monthly TCI for 40 cities across Iran for each year from 1961 to 2010. Changes in the TCI over the study period for each of the cities are then explored. Increases in TCI are observed for at least one station in each month, whilst for some months no decreases occurred. For October, the maximum of 45% of stations demonstrated significant changes in TCI, whilst for December only 10% of stations demonstrated change. The stations Kashan, Orumiyeh, Shahrekord, Tabriz, Torbat-e-Heidarieh and Zahedan experienced significant increases in TCI for over 6 months. The beginning of the change in TCI is calculated to have occurred from 1970 to 1980 for all stations. Given the economic dependence on oil exports, the development of sustainable tourism in Iran is of importance. This critically requires the identification of locations most suitable for tourism, now and in the future, to guide strategic investment.