Tourism Destination

In the 21st century, the meaning of places is essential to people. Meanings have gained symbolic importance through tourism heritage. Tourism is a powerful force  in shaping the world and our understanding of different cultures, people, and  places. This research investigates the complexities of religious tourism and the  management of religious destinations. It obtains criteria for managing religious  goals with a detailed look and uses the descriptive-analytical method based on  library documents and the opinion of research experts. Then, using research experts  and ISM-PLS hybrid approach, a three-level framework for managing religious  goals in Yazd city has been presented and analyzed. The results showed that the  government's decisions and actions were the most effective criteria. The ultimate  goal was to create a sense of trust and security among religious tourists. It is hoped  that the findings of this research will be a starting point for managing religious  tourism destinations and a guide for examining the complexities of Islamic tourism  destinations and their management.

Background: Official websites of tourism destinations provide an important digital content and are considered as widely-used tools of introducing destinations and presenting tourism products to the potential tourists. Improving the usability of websites helps the tourism destinations in achieving their goals. Websites usability is measured based on different criteria. Purpose: This paper evaluates and compares the usability of Iran and Malaysia official tourism destination websites –which are regarded as quite comparable in their tourism products and market- using seven criteria of content, visual attractiveness, infrastructure, interaction and responsiveness, navigation, customization, and product provision. Method: In order to do this evaluation, pairwise comparison questionnaires of the criteria were developed based on DEMATEL and ANP techniques and were answered online by 10 tourism experts in Iran. Websites’ usability analysis was performed using a combination of two MCDM (Multiple Criteria Decision Making) techniques that are DEMATEL and ANP so that the causal relations of the criteria are identified along with the ranking of their significance. Findings: The findings of the research show “infrastructure” as the dispatcher criterion, “product provision” as the receiver, and “content” as the most important criterion in the usability of tourism destinations’ websites. The findings also revealed the superiority of Malaysia’s official tourism website as compared to that of Iran.