Tourism and Hospitality Research (IJTHR)

Today, tourism has become a highly successful and profitable industry in the world, especially in developed countries. Hamadan province in Iran has a lot of tourist attractions. According to statistics released by the Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization in the province, there are over 1831 historical and cultural recorded works in Hamedan province. Therefore, by investing in the tourism sector, the province can be turned into a tourist destination, helping to create jobs and increase people's income. This research is an applied one, conducted by field and observation methods. Thus, tourism can be considered as a rescue tool for sustainable urban development, especially in marginalized areas. In this research, the effect of tourism industry on decreasing housing unsustainability will be studied in one of Hamedan's marginal neighborhoods, Manoochehri neighborhood, emphasizing on sustainability components. Using a researcher-made questionnaire, the researcher analyzed the extent of each of the components to answer the research questions and, through the SWOT table, identified the strategy of intervention in the neighborhood to reduce the incidence of unsustainability and, in the end, considering the strategy and the results of the questionnaire, it has come up with the necessary strategies.

 Spatial expansion and land use changes in agricultural lands are among important factors contributing to environmental damages and disabilities of productive economy in the region, especially in agricultural aspects. This trend is common in developing countries. These changes in land use usually occur by those who target agricultural lands for speculations and other abusing forms of economy. In addition this trend also affects environment likewise economy which is attributed as sprawl. Urumia urban region has valuable agricultural lands which plays a key role in both environment and economy. During the past two decades, according to excessive construction in the region these areas are turned out to be more of a recreational site for affluent families which has decreased agricultural functions there and also has damaged beautiful landscapes of the villages. Recent condition is resulted from not being cost effective agricultural activities and inefficiency of the market supplemented with not supporting agricultural activities. This has leaded that Urumia urban region goes through a spatial expansion which differs considerably with urban sprawl. This paper is aimed to analyze effective factors on land changes and the following sprawl by it. Moreover there are two main questions that should be answered: first, which factors contribute to spatial expansion in agricultural areas? How is the sprawl dominating Urumia urban region attributed? In order to analyze and produce status qua and current relationship between Urumia city and agricultural lands, a descriptive and analytical method were used and in order to analyze the development process the documents were considered and finally in order to examine occurred changes from satellite photographs and cartographic photos in different periods were used. After gathering data and statistics and classification, in the second stage, through observing it was tried to perfect the statistics. The results showed that the absence cost effectiveness in agricultural activities and speculation in land and of the differences between users and speculators have resulted a new form of sprawl in Urumia which differs considerably with its common forms. This new sprawl has features which sustains affluent interests.

The war and the remaining works have territorial, psychological and social dimensions. It can be said that war is a scene of the epic, resistance and brave men of soldiers who have always enjoyed their homeland and their ideological attitude for the next generations and for a patriotic pattern and patronage of the motherland. War tourism is a form of tourism that experts in this area have placed it as a special tourism and some adventurous. In Iran, war tourism has a lot to do with what tourism planners define, because the main battlefield of the enemies of this border after the Iraqi imposed war against Iran has entered into an aggressive range of its cultural and psychological reach, Supreme Leader is referred to as "cultural invasion" and sometimes "soft warfare". Therefore, in a practical, analytical and descriptive study, the researcher studied the role of war tourism in identifying the spirit of resistance, sacrifice and martyrdom in order to confront the soft warfare of the enemy has been addressed. In this research, the statistical population of the Ilam Visitor Survey is randomly selected individuals. The sample size was 100 according to Cochran's formula. The SWOT analysis was carried out and its strategies determined, and ultimately, with the help of the IFE and EFE matrices, it became clear that in the development of war tourism to deal with the soft war of the enemy, internal factors had weaknesses and the strengths of the external factors. Also, the strategy used in this research is an adaptive strategy that prioritizes these strategies using the QSPM method.

Nowadays, the residents of urban areas try to spend some time in natural, quiet, original and intact environments to escape from the various types of environmental pollution that threatens them. Therefore, tourism is one of the phenomena that has affected the rural areas and especially the summer villages of Tehran in recent decades. The purpose of this study was to investigate the process of emergence and identification of environmental factors and their relations with development of tourism around metropolis of Tehran. The method of this research was descriptive-analytical. For information gathering, field surveys (questionnaires) were used and 100 households were interviewed. The results showed that the tourism of the studied villages dates back to the decades 1991s and in 2001s, it had a growing trend, and a meaningful relationship between natural and human factors in the formation of this industry has existed. Accordingly, the findings of the research suggested that identifying the effects and environmental factors in the development of tourism structures in rural areas are important.

The hotel industry in Qeshm Island is rapidly expanding. An important component in the hotel industry is the human resource. Tourists do not just come for the facilities and attractions, they want to be treated right and well and that is why a good command of the English language is always regarded as an asset for personnel in the tourism industry. This study was conducted to study and analyze the impact of one of the English skills, i.e., speaking of staff in hotels on attracting tourist in Qeshm Island. In order to so, data was collected from 25 foreign tourists in a hotel as Marina Hotel, regarding their expectations and perceptions of their stay about personal qualities of the hotels’ staff in different positions. The results obtained from the expectations of the guests indicated that the role and importance of the ‘English language proficiency’ in the tourism industry is relative to job function. ‘English language proficiency’ is more expected from those who often come into direct face-to-face contact with hotel guests such as the reception staff and it is more expected for the hotel management personnel as well. For other hotel staff, such as food & beverage and housekeeping staff, other qualities are expected more than ‘English language proficiency’ by hotel guests.

One of the regions which has many potentiality and capabilities for developing Tourism from natural aspect is Galugah county. Unfortunately, Tourism sources are useless due to incorrect programming. Accordingly, general objectives of this research were identifying strong and weak points, opportunity and possible threats for developing Tourism. Also, identifying of current Tourism position and, presenting suitable methods for developing potential capabilities of Tourism in Galugah county were the objectives of present study. The research model was applied and goal oriented and the research method was survey-descriptive. The necessity information was collected through field and library methods. A questionnaire was also used for collecting data. Moreover, techniques of QSPM, SWOT were used to describe the research information. Statistical population samples were selected from authorities’ community. Since the authorities were busy people and not always available in Galugah county, only 30 questionnaires were distributed among them. Results analysis of this research showed that among external and internal factors i.e. pollution of environment and river and extinction of plants species under the influence of pollution and O2 i.e. suitable climate for developing natural Tourism efforts in summer were the most important and influential factors. Cold temperature of the region in summer (W3) and existence of unique amusement places (S5) such as Amarg were recognized as effective and most leading factors among internal factors on Tourism development of Galugah county. Presenting methods of the third process showed that a comparison of total grades for attractiveness of methods and ST3 method i.e. initiating new occupational opportunities on the basis of natural potentials and rich culture of regions inhabitants by protecting region cultural identity and nature had the highest score in this process.