International journal of Tourism, Culture and Spirituality

When deliberating on the spiritual dimension of tourism, one key question is that how individuals are seeking for their life meaning and experiences of divine existence, as well as their connectedness as subjectively lived during their travel.  In fact, tourism is closely connected to religion which has always been a powerful travel motivation from the time of early pilgrimages to contemporary journeys to sacred places. Religious sites, rituals, festivals and ceremonies are considered important attractions for both religious followers with special systems of belief and tourists with a casual interest. Perhaps, this characteristic of the tourism experience is the main reason for spiritual tourism experiences being recently popular among individuals who have started engaging in spiritualitydriven experiences and among persons aiming to develop their continuing sublime engagement by means of travel. There are various reasons for travelling for spiritual growth which is opposed to the traditional notions of pilgrimage and religious tourism. However, relatively few scholars have explored the multitudinous relationships between religion, spirituality, and sustainable tourism, despite the pervasiveness of religious tourism and spiritual connections to place. A subject that has received only scant attention in the literature is the negative social and ecological impacts of religious (mass) tourism. Several authors have noted the negative impacts of religious tourism on the commercialization of places and artifacts that were once held as sacred locations. The commodification of religious symbols and the economic implications of selling them should become of increased interest to researchers as the world becomes more consumption-oriented.

The main purpose of this study is identifying influential factors on the future of spiritual tourism and formulation of plausible scenario for it. From philosophical point of view, this paper is pragmatic, exploratory from target’s point of view and it’s practical. It’s a survey research in collecting data and its methodology is mixed. In this study, by studying the literature and interviewing with experts, the factors influencing the future of spiritual tourism were identified and then, using the Cross Impact analysis approach, the data was entered into the MIC MAC software and two key factors affecting the future of spiritual tourism in Qom province. It was found out that Facilitate versus Rigor and Culture policy which were selected among the eleven final effective factors. In the next step, four scenarios are presented in this study. These scenarios include Limited liberalism scenario, Liberal world Scenario, Negligence scenario and Authoritarian Spirituality scenario.

By producing the paradigm of creative tourism, the knowledge increasing discipline of tourism invites tourists to visit and interact with the unique and live culture of societies instead of just sightseeing in museums and ancient monuments. In this paradigm, tourists engage all of their senses in the creation of their unique experience and improving their relations with local people from seller/buyer to a master/apprentice level. Not only the cultural capital but also the social capital would be increased from this interaction. The main goal of this research is to show that, contrary to what appears at first, the creative domain of gastronomy is a spiritual one and flourishing local communities and creative tourism based on this paradigm can evolve the wellbeing and material life of inhabitants and tourists as well. Moreover, this includes significant spiritual endowments both for guests and hosts in the creative gastronomic destinations. Creative tourism based on gastronomy regards new looks to local communities as the first step in creating unique and added value experiences including economic, human, and social values. In creative tourism, locals and tourists will open their eyes on the destination in completely new ways, so that they could see better in creating new and valuable experiences. This definition is closely related to the Quranic command of “The man must consider what he eats”. In this research, using thematic analysis and Delphi method, it is shown that the components of spiritual perception have significant overlaps with the components of gastronomic creative tourism. Factors such as “comfort and satisfaction”, “Giving meaning to life”, “interaction with others”, “friendship with nature and environment”, and “surrender and thanksgiving “, as the components of the spiritual understanding, showed common and undeniable spaces with the components of creative tourism. These components include “authentic experiences “, “active participation “, “learning”, “self-esteem and self-awareness”, “new products and processes”, and “new spaces”. Based on our results, each of these components has their own proprietary domains and non-negligible common spaces, and even in some cases are subsets of each other.

  Today, sustainable development of tourism as a strategy for the development of cities, especially remote cities is a relatively new idea that its importance has been realized by policymakers. This type of tourism can be considered as a source of income, creating jobs, and making positive changes in the income of cities. In tourism studies, there are also discussions about spiritual tourism. However, most scholars do not consider spiritual tourism as realtourism because it is like an umbrella that can include various types of tourism that leads to a transcendental sense and sacred values such as ‘Spiritual city tourism’.Then, using laboratory techniques of test and evaluation of fuzzy DEMATEL decision making, as one of the appropriate decision-making techniques that deal with systematic relations between variables, relations among factors influencing the development of Spiritual city tourism in Tehran are studied and modeled. The results of the fuzzy DEMATEL method showed that factors affecting the development of Spiritualcity tourism include Appropriate planning and management, Direct supervision of the government and institutions on those active in the field of tourism, Presence of experts fluent in live languages of the world beside tourism attractions, Attracting foreign investment for the development of Spiritual city tourism activities with contracts and special facilities, Marketing, advertising, and introducing tourism attractions in national and international areas, Culturalization of tourism development and promotion of tourist acceptance culture among city residents.

Studying the concept of spirituality in tourism is neithera newapproach nor a study of a particular kind of tourism or simply a religious perspective to tourism. Rather, it is an indicator of spiritual contents that today’s tourism is submerged into discover and attain non-material values and the reality duringthe length of its journey. This research offers a new perspective in the study of the methodology of tourism studies with a descriptive-analytical approach, conjunctive viewwhile using library documentation and a review of theoretical foundations according to the fuzzylogicmethodology. The fuzzy logictheory possesses a more precise capacity to explain and analyze concepts and phenomena and also a spectral reading of phenomena thatuses the binary numbers of 0 and 1 as the extreme points of reality and accepts that there are infinite points of reality between the two of them; therefore, in order to more precisely and comprehensively understand reality, one must have a hierarchical view towardthephenomena. With this approach, spirituality in tourism includes a great variety of concepts and elementsthat are allambiguous and graded. These elements include reasoning and probing, religious denomination and beliefs, mutual relations, and quality of life and culture. The propositions of spirituality in tourism essentially exist in bothfuzzy and spectral logic,not justwith fuzzy logic because of the essential ambiguity existingin concepts and elements andtheir metaphysical aspects. Therefore, this study is built upon the studies related to spiritualityin tourismconducted through the fuzzy logicmethodologies. According to the obtainedresults, this important approach must be paid attention so that the great capacities of spirituality in tourism in the areas of knowledge and action can be correctly utilized.

Human beings are constantly active to live their everyday life. They spend long hours of their life on working and activity in closed and confined environments. That along with urbanization, mental and psychological traumas and physical harms has led some to think about leisure time and its significance in their life. Meantime, various schools of thought and ideologies attach great significance to leisure time. Islam also recognizes the necessity of tourism, as a prescribed form of leisure time, at individual and social life. In this regard, tourism with a spiritual approach is followed by an intellectual upgrade and spiritual evolution of humans, leading to intellectual and spiritual enrichment. This study has been conducted to examine the status of leisure time and tourism in the holy Quran and hadiths. This descriptive-analytical research, which is based on Quranic verses and hadiths frequently narrated in authenticated books, aims to examine various aspects of leisure time and tourism in the Quran and hadiths. The findings of this research show that Islam views leisure time as a moral issue. Relying on the Quranic verses and hadiths, tourism may be divided into halal (permissible), makrouh (non- recommended) and haram (strictly forbidden). Quranically tourism with a spiritual approach brings about serenity, durability and blessings while being faith-based and beyond gender division.