محمدحسین ایمانی خوشخو

It is truly undeniable that tourism is a system leading to epistemology and resulting in spiritual growth and excellence. The mission of the journey lies in its spiritual achievements and eco-lodges provide the potential context for mutual interconnections and gaining meaning and excellence. Therefore, lacking emphasis on spiritual potentials of eco-lodges in the accommodation sector is the main concern of this research. The present study aims to identify the factors influencing the landscape development of eco-lodges from the viewpoint of tourists to explain and analyze the realization of the spiritual landscape of eco-lodges via the perception of the eco-lodges’ landscape. The main concern of this qualitative research is seeking what a tourist sees, what he understands, how the type of accommodation would lead him from objectivity to subjectivity and ultimately, how the perception of the spiritual landscape from tourist’s view is. Answering research questions through the qualitative method with an interpretive approach and inductive strategy has been conducted by a semi-structured interview tool. Besides, the research data is gathered via two phases of coding the general concepts and classification of concepts based on the frequency. Lastly, the findings have been analyzed and interpreted through a conceptual framework. Based on research results, staying in eco-lodge causes leading resident tourist from objectivity to subjectivity and this is derived from perception of spiritual landscape. The components of the eco-lodges’ landscape adapting with three  parameters of spirituality in tourism, lead tourists to the perception of the spiritual landscape as well as the realization of the mutual understanding of nature and man in the journey and the achievement of the meaning and spirit through accommodation in eco-lodges.

Religion is the core and key element of human life and as a travel organizer, it has played an important role in human life from the past to the present. The essence of a human being has been founded based on the primordial nature and spiritual dimension, which is not merely composed of material dimensions and, possibly, its existential spiritual dimension is a key element of humanity. Therefore, spirituality as a type of psychological quality -that is beyond religious beliefs and motivates man and creates feelings such as understanding divine solemnity and respect for creation in a human being- is an important factor in recognizing the nature of man in the perspective of monotheistic religions. This research was done by means of a qualitative-descriptive method, in the form of library studies and field interviews in two sections besides the content analysis method. In the fall and winter of 2017, an in-depth and semi-structured interview was conducted with 60 professors, experts and scholars of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam religions in three parts: defining the concept of spirituality, the place of travel in these religions, and the relationship between spirituality and travel. The results of the comparative studies show that spirituality is based on the human being's existential nature and its natural, spiritual, and immaterial dimension in order to help human beings to fulfill the purpose of creation as mentioned in monotheistic religions. In the meantime, human beings travel, especially do pilgrimages, as one of the sources of knowledge.

The objective of this study is to investigate the extent of spirituality in various types of tourism, and to test the hypothesis of the existence of common spiritual experiences among all types of tourists. McKercher's typology of cultural tourists and Norman's (2012) typology of tourists' spiritual experiences were applied to classify various groups of spiritual tourists participating in each type of tourism activity. The study population consisted of all individuals who have travelled with the purpose of pilgrimage, recreation, visiting cultural historical attractions, business, visiting religious sites, or participating in ecotourism and nature-based tourism. Sampling was done based on the convenience method according to the size and nature of the target population. Finally, it was concluded that most pilgrims and visitors to the religious sites were purposeful and sightseeing spiritual tourists with a deep intention to search for spiritual growth. Also, among nature-based tourists, ecotourists, business and recreational tourists, and those who had traveled to visit cultural and historical sites, a considerable number were Casual, Incidental and Serendipitous Spiritual Tourists, whilst only a small proportion had purposefully travelled for spiritual growth. Nevertheless, the research indicates the existence of at least one powerful element of spirituality in all types of tourism. 

Human beings take a step in the path of discovery and searching the universe. Meanwhile, travel is one of the means of searching wisdom and experience for communicating with the land, nature and the world’s creator, as well as finding meaning and concept of life. Therefore, humans understand travel as a source of perception and take benefits from it for recognizing themselves and the universe. The term "spiritual perception" is defined as a way for understanding and interpreting all non-material affairs related to the origin of human soul which has been investigated in this research. In this regarda qualitative-quantitative method has been applied in which the spiritual perception factors were obtained by using concept analysis method after conducting deep interviews with experts. Four factors of human hypothesis, spiritual truth, outward truth and human interaction were considered. Study population consisted of foreign cultural tourists travelling to the City of Isfahan from March to June 2018.  Gathered data was analyzed by using structural equation and Smart PLS. The results showed that all the hypotheses of research were confirmed and there were meaningful relationships among tourists' spiritual perception and mentioned factors.    

Nowadays, creativity has become a strategy in tourism development; cities and regions that want to increase their attractiveness to the creative class must support creative industries. Intangible cultural heritage (ICH), as a unique advantage in the tourism industry, provides global competitiveness for the community. Sustainable tourism approaches are needed to transition and promote ICH as a sustainable tourism resource successfully. Accordingly, this study investigates the role of women's creativity in developing intangible cultural heritage with a creative tourism approach. The statistical population of this study is women in the Uramanat region and tourists in the area. A sample of 360 people from each community was selected by purposive and available sampling. Creativity with measurement approach and value creation and development of intangible cultural heritage with the dimensions of preserving originality, empowerment, maintaining the meaning of content, emphasizing identity, parallel development of tourism, and heritage protection was measured by a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity was assessed using construct validity. Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability were used for instrument reliability, and both were acceptable. The studied model was tested using the least-squares approach. Findings showed that creativity has a significant positive effect on the development of intangible cultural heritage. In many destinations, the development of creative tourism, one of the rapid branches of economic growth, and the development of intangible cultural heritage in the tourism industry are essential.

Religious tourism is one of the world's most critical current types of tourism, especially in Islamic countries such as Iran, which has a high potential for development and progress in this field. However, the development of this type of tourism in our country is not restricted to only religious cities but includes other cities in Iran. With its religious-pilgrimage functions, Sari city in Mazandaran province provides an appropriate ground for developing religious tourism as one of the main forms of tourism. The present research first conducted a set of observations in the region after studying library documents using the field method. After analyzing data from the observations, research questions were evaluated by organizations, experts, and the local community. The results were quantitatively examined by SWOT analysis. Finally, according to extracted concepts from qualitative and quantitative analysis, a model for the development of religious tourism was obtained based on library and field studies using interviews and then evaluated by experts. Results show that religious places of Sari city aren’t on the list of development priorities. It presents a model for development in this region with more challenges. Therefore, the qualitative and quantitative analysis results of this research imply a very appropriate situation and a high potential for religious tourism, emphasizing Imamzadeh in Sari city.

Stakeholders of the tourism industry are facing crises with many stress factors. Resilience is one of the most essential human abilities in critical situations. To improve the resilience of the stakeholders of the tourism industry, paying attention to spiritual health is very important. Spiritual health is a fundamental factor in the resilience of tourism industry stakeholders. This study aims to present a model of identifying and prioritizing the effective factors in spiritual health on the resilience of tourism stakeholders. For this purpose, information was collected through an in-depth study of the subject literature, and an in-depth interview with 15 experts in the field of tourism who are familiar with tourism, spirituality, and culture, and coding was done with the exploratory approach of thematic analysis and using ATLAS-ti software. And finally, 28 indicators and six components were extracted. Then, in the next stage, the research components were implemented by 15 research experts using the questionnaire and interpretive-structural modeling (ISM) method, and using MATLAB software, the position, importance, and effectiveness of the extracted research components were presented at six levels. The results of this research state that the element of spiritual structure in tourism has the most impact and is the cornerstone of spiritual health in the resilience of the Stakeholders of the tourism industry, and the component of spiritual perception of the tourism stakeholders has the most effectiveness.