سید سعید هاشمی

This study explores the potential of metaverse technology in advancing sustainable tourism development in alignment with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Through a meta-synthesis analysis following a seven-step approach, 17 articles were selected from an initial pool of 149 and analyzed, identifying six key categories that illustrate how the metaverse contributes to tourism sustainability. The findings emphasize the metaverse's significant role in sustainable tourism by offering economic, educational, technological, and environmental benefits. The metaverse supports long-term sustainability in the sector by enhancing tourism experiences while reducing environmental impact, promoting responsible travel behaviors, and leveraging digital innovations. This study provides valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders seeking to harness metaverse technology to drive innovation, foster sustainability, and develop models that balance economic growth with environmental stewardship.

Intangible cultural heritage, a cornerstone of sustainable tourism development, plays a pivotal role in differentiating destinations and attracting visitors. However, its effective preservation and promotion require a comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence its development. This study employs a qualitative research approach, specifically an exploratory design. The target population comprises experts in the field of tourism and cultural heritage, and snowball sampling was utilized to select participants. The study data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed by using the thematic analysis method and MAXQDA software. The method of retesting the interviews has been used to confirm and increase the validity of the interviews’ results. The output obtained from the analysis of the interviews includes 270 open codes and 80 axial codes in the form of 18 sub-themes, which are as following: creative tourists, infrastructure, capitalistic view of heritage, linking heritage with tourism, women's relationship with intangible heritage, destination management, organization, combination of creativity and culture, empowering and augmenting women’s capability, education, motivation, women's role, supporting women, supporting creative tourism, capacity and competitiveness of the destination, characteristics of the destination, handicrafts and festivals. These themes have been embedded in the three main categories of creativity, creative tourism and development of intangible heritage. On the basis of that, a model for the development of intangible cultural heritage was proposed. The findings of this study showed that in many destinations, the development of creative tourism and the creativity of the residential community, especially women, can be one of the branches of tourism development and as an incentive for the development of intangible cultural heritage.

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.

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.