Sahar Movahedi; Seyed Saeed Hashemi
Abstract
Nowadays, the generated and shared content on tourist perceptions in social media is considered a fresh and far-reaching way to introduce the concept of the destination image. Destination decision-makers attempt to use this content to provide a deep understanding of tourism supply and demand. Marketers ...
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Nowadays, the generated and shared content on tourist perceptions in social media is considered a fresh and far-reaching way to introduce the concept of the destination image. Destination decision-makers attempt to use this content to provide a deep understanding of tourism supply and demand. Marketers have to be particular about it when defining a proper destination image. In this regard, many researchers have emphasized the importance of using social media to tap into tourists’ perceptions of destination because it not only helps to deepen the administrators’ understanding of the demands of this type of tourism and to propose new approaches to determine the customers’ preferences in destination marketing but also directs new products and services to satisfy the tourists to a greater extent. Depending on the type of tourism, the contexts and criteria for this kind of virtual investigation are different. For example, in cultural destinations, tourists’ perceptions of tangible and intangible cultural heritage and services and products offered in virtual contexts are regarded as a tool to assess the tourists’ perceptions of that destination. The present study assumes that a holistic approach toward the analysis of tourist perception in the virtual sphere could be a well-qualified alternative to determine tourists’ wants in cultural destinations. Content analysis, which is a practical method in analyzing visual and textual data and therefore is quite pertinent to the analysis of tourist perceptions, was adopted as the data analysis instrument in this study. To collect the data, two frequently-visited and widely-used websites with easy access to tourists’ comments, namely TripAdvisor and Flickr, were selected so that tourists’ experiences and perceptions could be gathered more authentically and conveniently. The findings demonstrated that the analysis of perceived authenticity of cultural destinations in Iran could provide the content required to create a destination image for purposeful marketing in Iran. Perceived Authenticity was categorized into three main themes: emotional, sensational, and rational.
Teimour Marjani; Afsaneh Pourjam
Abstract
Although today it is common to categorize spiritual tourism separately as a type of tourism, spirituality can be found at the heart of any travel. What might be taken as granted is that the tourist is going to add something to his/her self and, in this respect, some degree of spirituality can be sought ...
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Although today it is common to categorize spiritual tourism separately as a type of tourism, spirituality can be found at the heart of any travel. What might be taken as granted is that the tourist is going to add something to his/her self and, in this respect, some degree of spirituality can be sought in every type of tourism. Therefore, through entrepreneurship and innovation it would be possible to focus on the development of businesses which are able to offer some degree of spirituality to tourists according to their needs. This paper seeks to provide a deeper view of the relationship between authentic experiences and spiritual tourism and the role of entrepreneurship in utilizing this relationship in order to enrich tourists’ experiences. In other words, the spiritual dimension of every type of tourism is discussed and the necessity of its reinforcement through entrepreneurship in tourism and a systematic approach towards the issue is considered.