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This article examines how contemporary tourists visiting the mystical destinations perceive the different aspects of the mystical tours. In other words, this article attempts to investigate the role of mystical journeys and spiritual tours in improvement of tourists’ satisfaction and quality of life. The statistical population of this study includes the international tourists, who participated in the mystical tours and visited the attractions of the mystical elders in Iran. Therefore, 384 tourists were selected by convenience sampling method and a questionnaire survey was conducted since June 2019 to January 2020. Then, in order to determine relationships between research variables, the Structural Equation Modeling method was applied. Findings indicated that participating in the mystical tours has an impact on the increasing quality of life. This effect can be achieved through various variables. In addition, many factors and variables such as brand image, quality of services, perceived value, tourist satisfaction, reputation of destinations and tourist commitment to the destination have positive impacts on the tourists’ loyalty.

Spiritual perception is a concept to gain spiritual experience, a sense of closeness, connection to nature, and inner peace. In this case, the cohesion feeling is a general direction of human life that determines the degree of human resistance to life's pressures, stresses, and hardships. When it comes to Covid-19 in the world, this disease should be considered a psychosocial reality and consider the issue of health and hygiene. Covid-19 caused feelings of insecurity, fear, anxiety, negative emotions, rejection, despair, and forced people to quarantine at home. This research has been conducted with the qualitative method based on the descriptive-analytical method. The research data were collected in two sections of library documents and interviews. In addition, the content analysis method was used to analyze the data. The research area is Ibn Bulawayo religious site in Tehran, and the research time area is March 2020. According to studies and research on Ibn Babawayh’s religious place, spiritual perception is an inner and cognitive concept of each person's spiritual perceptions. Antonovsky's theory was questioned during the Corona pandemic based on comprehensibility/manageability,/significance. This study indicates that spiritual perception is related to God, the Creator of the universe, and the world of spirituality and meaning. The human becomes closer to God by Spiritual perception and contemplation, which causes the submission to the Creator. The self-surrender is a significant reason for promoting and improving a sense of individual cohesion.

Spirituality is a universal and human phenomenon which is not restricted to any religions or religious groups. In fact, spiritual experiences are thought of as special human experiences which give meaning to life. Such enlightening experiences make man connect to a higher being. Therefore, spiritual tourism is a journey on which a traveller achieves a perception of spiritual experiences. Such experiences can be gained on a long walk with a group of sympathetic fellow travelers towards religious destinations. They may also be achieved while watching a pristine view of the nature which enables the viewer to understand the creator of the scene and reach deep meanings through a creative insight. Creative tourism is mostly manifested as a form of inner expression and discovery, a tool of improvement in identity and distinction or a search for the expansion of capabilities and experiences as well as an ability to reflect the life purposefully. This type of tourism belongs to self-actualizing individuals. In fact, they are educated people who seek to give meaning to life. Therefore, the creative tourism theory is the closest approach to tourism combined with spirituality. These two categories overlap with each other significantly. In this qualitative study, the two-stage Delphi technique and desk research method were used to verify this hypothesis. Creative tourism can be thought of as a new paradigm of tourism or the third generation after coastal tourism and cultural tourism. It can also be considered an evolved type of cultural tourism which pays more attention to the intangible heritage rather than the tangible one. In either case, it is a form of network tourism in which values are created collectively through available relationships and the flow of social relationships and capital in networks. Therefore, its new management models and strategies should be identified and applied. In the current study, the desk research method was used to identify such models. Then the two-stage Delphi technique was employed to verify them.

A connection has long existed between tourism and spirituality. More specifically, travel for spiritual purposes has for centuries been a popular manifestation of human mobility. Pilgrimage and other spiritually-motivated travel is widely considered to be one of the earliest forms of tourism and nowadays, religious tourism, in all its forms, has evolved into a major sector of the global tourism market. Over the last three decades, however, an alternative perspective on the tourism-spirituality relationship has emerged. Focusing on the meaning or significance of contemporary tourism, it is argued that tourism is a sacred journey, a secular spiritual experience; in other words, tourism has become a secular alternative to the institution of religion, the contemporary tourist a modern, secular pilgrim. Hence, a conceptual divide exists in the relationship between tourism and spirituality, between spiritual (religious) tourism and tourism as spirituality (religion).  Moreover, that divide is evidenced in much of the extant research into tourism, religion and spirituality.                 As this paper suggests, however, such a conceptual divide over-simplifies the relationship between tourism and spirituality; not only is the distinction between spiritual / religious tourism and tourism as a secular spiritual experience becoming increasing fuzzy – some traditional religious travel experiences, for example, are taking on the aura of commoditised tourism products, with implications for the experience of participants themselves – but also the relationship can be viewed from different disciplinary and theoretical positions. A humanistic perspective, for example, questions the notion of spirituality itself, whilst varying interpretations of religion / spirituality also cast the relationship in different lights. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore the complexity of the spiritual dimension of tourism. Reviewing the extant literature, it highlights the dimensions of and limits to research into the relationship between tourism and spirituality and, exploring the phenomenon from a variety of perspectives, challenges contemporary understandings and points to areas demanding further research.  

Spirituality in the present world has surpassed different geographical, racial, religious, gender, and etc. boundaries. The issue has emerged under such different titles as religion, originality, the meaning of life, etc., and raised a number of debates. The enthusiasm in seeking meaning has been manifested in various fields including tourism as much as the journey is sometimes interpreted seeking for meaning. However, it is yet unclear how the two areas are linked together in different tourism approaches and branches. Volunteer tourism, among these, is known as one of the increasingly prevalent approaches to various forms of tourism. In this regard, the present research intends to find the relationship between volunteer tourism approach and spirituality highlighting literature review. Then, relying on practically available pieces of evidence, spiritual effects of Iranian Pro-poor tourism (Travel of Iranian volunteers to deprived areas) is reviewed and emphasized on volunteer tourists as an Islamic-Iranian voluntary traveling model.

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.

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.    

The current research mainly aims to investigate the effective factors in creating a food tourism brand in Shiraz. The statistical population includes all experts in the field of tourism and hotel management, food, cooking, and restaurant industry, and tourists, who were selected using the purposeful sampling method. First, 13 factors were identified according to research literature. The identified factors were given to 10 selected experts who were aware of the desired criteria. Then, the relationships between these factors were determined using the fuzzy Dematel method, and the answer to the second question was also determined. The results showed that the factor of investment in the field of food tourism, and using new advertising tools in this field are the most important thing in creating a food tourism brand in Shiraz. The parameters of food quality and food authenticity are the most effective in this area. In addition, creating a good feeling towards the brand and advertising, in this field are among the most effective parameters, respectively. Food tourism branding issue is the most important issues that should be considered in Shiraz. In this regard, it is possible to identify the foods of Shiraz as intangible cultural heritage, bring them to the national register, prepare their files for global registration in UNESCO, and conduct cultural and political consultations so that the files should be presented at the international level.

Comprehensive and reliable conceptual definition of concepts can be considered as the first step toward managing the phenomena based on those concepts. Spiritual tourism is a multidimensional phenomenon with different mixed concepts such as spiritual experience, spiritual tourist, achieving spirituality through tourism, deepening and institutionalizing spirituality perception (experience), training and learning spirituality (spiritual experiences), development planning, spiritual tourism economics, and spiritual tourism marketing. The mentioned concepts are formed in dialectical models that are influenced by disciplines such as geography, history, economics, management, religion, and mysticism. Regardless of the level and the type of combination of concepts, the definition of these concepts may be different in various paradigms due to the differences in assumptions, ontology, epistemology and methodology of different paradigms. Such a different even makes the spiritual tourism’s definition process more difficult. Spiritual tourism has already common definitions in literature that are not formally classified based on various paradigms’ assumptions; and have not been specified by the tourists under which paradigm that they are formed. Therefore, in this paper, the concept of spiritual tourism is reviewed from the perspective of different paradigms such as positivism, critical romanticism, post-modernism, critical realism, and pragmatism and new definitions are extracted. Based on the results of this article, the passage from abstract concepts to operational concepts in the field of spiritual tourism has been smoother. Besides, a more sustainable vision has been created about how to create and disseminate knowledge in the field of spiritual tourism. Hence, the main aim and contribution of this article is to extract the different conceptual definitions of spiritual tourism in different paradigms, in order to provide a reliable paradigm conceptual definition of tourism spiritual. The present paper concluded that a reliable and comprehensive definition of spiritual tourism can be provided in Pragmatism Paradigm framework.  This pragmatic definition can be used as a base for future planning, management, marketing, and other operational and administrative applications.

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.

The purpose of this work is to use structural analysis to create believable scenarios of Iranian food tourism. In the present study, to formulate plausible scenarios, first by reviewing the literature and interviewing experts, 37 factors affecting food tourism were extracted. The variables affecting the future of food tourism, directly and indirectly, were calculated using a questionnaire and analysis by MICMAC software. Finally, considering the two most critical factors called food festivals and sanctions/international relations, plausible scenarios for the future of Iranian food tourism were developed. Based on the results, four scenarios are presented. These scenarios include Golden Scenario, Limited Scenario, Neglected Scenario and Chaotic Scenario. In Golden scenario, which depicts the ideal conditions, as many suitable food festivals as possible are being held in a country, and sanctions are not imposed. According to Limited Scenario, holding more and better food festivals is on the officials’ agenda, but on the other hand, the country is under sanctions and pressure. In Neglected Scenario, holding festivals is the same as in the past, and the country is not sanctioned. In Chaotic Scenario, depicting the worst-case scenario, the festival process is the same as in the past and has not been developed quantitatively and qualitatively. Also, the country is in a problematic situation of sanctions. Creating Credible The industry's major players and beneficiaries greatly benefit from Iranian food tourism scenarios, which enable them to provide flexible preparation-based programmers in response to shifting circumstances. The techniques and factors that influence the growth of the business will be known to the participants and recipients of food tourism, and this will open up a multitude of opportunities for the players involved.