Accommodation

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.

The issue of accommodation in tourism destinations is so important that it has been considered in the definition of tourist, as tourist is someone who accommodates at least one night in a place outside his/her usual environment. The importance of this issue will be doubled when we know that successful tourism destinations are those that have the ability to welcome more tourists with longer overnight stay. The existing state of hospitality in Iran and its impact on tourism development were evaluated in the present study using the research method of descriptive-survey. The results show that hospitality industry requires some major factors for growth and prosperity. Facilities required for investment in this sector and the presence of passengers and customers are two major factors. Without tourists, there is no point in continuation of hospitality industry and generally tourism industry. After the Islamic Revolution, hospitality industry was forgotten and didn't consider as an essential industry in the economic structure of the country, but it was regarded as a luxury good. Little attention to tourism sector caused the hospitality industry to face recession. Despite the increase in the total number of accommodation facilities in the country, this increase was insufficient and there were many problems and shortcomings in the management of hotels, especially the high-grade ones. Additionally, the lack of adequate support of relevant organizations put this industry in an impasse. On the other hand, although there are thousands of beds and tourism resorts in the country, only half of the capacity of these hotels and residences is occupied by passengers at the peak time of journeys. This due to the price of hotels which is unaffordable to many people and middle class or poor people prefer to spendless money for accommodation. Hence, domestic tourists are less interested in staying in hotels, motels, suites, and so on, while the number of foreign tourists entering the country has faced with a negative growth over the past few years. Sima Hemmati. Evaluation of the impact of hospitality on tourism development with emphasis on Iran. Life SciЈ 2012:9(3):2660-2666.) (ISSN: 1097-8135).