Comparative study of religious tourism in Iranian metropolises

Master's course in tourism management, tourism planning and development

Abstract

Thesis title: Comparative study of religious tourism in Iranian metropolises, a case study (Qom, Shiraz and Mashhad)

Thesis abstract: Since comparative studies have had a special place in scientific studies from the past until now, and such studies examine and put together at least two phenomena to examine their commonalities and differences, in this regard, this thesis, within the framework of an analytical and descriptive method, examines and studies the comparative study of religious tourism and the status of religious tourism products in the three metropolises of Mashhad, Qom and Shiraz, and its role and impact in the development of tourism in these three metropolises. The city pays. In order to carry out this scientific research of a conceptual model of tourism product, the status of religious tourism product in these three cities is presented. Data collection tools are interviews, documents, articles and documents. Expert Choice software was used for data analysis. The results of this research show the relative weights of criteria and sub-criteria in the conceptual model of religious tourism product evaluation using the balanced scorecard method. The results of the AHP technique in the comparative study of these three metropolises show that the order of importance of the indicators influencing the religious tourism product is, respectively, the attraction index (0.350), accommodation service index (0.200), access index (0.131), catering services index (0.69), transportation index (0.69), commercial and recreational services index (0.69), medical services index (0.69) and institutional and organizational elements index (0.44). And in general, from the obtained results, it can be clearly seen that the state of the religious tourism product as a whole in these three big cities, respectively, Mashhad with (0.475), has a more favorable situation than the other two cities, and the next place is the city of Shiraz with (0.290) with a not too big difference compared to Qom (0.235), and finally, the situation in Qom does not indicate a favorable state of the tourism product.

Key words: religious tourism, tourism product, Comparative study, AHP model, religious metropolis

1 Introduction

One of the important topics in the national development planning of countries and especially in the economic and commercial sectors that can have a special place is the topic of tourism and travel. Today, in most of the advanced countries of the world, parallel to the economic growth of these countries, we are also witnessing the growth of tourism. In today's world, many countries in the world, which are facing limited foreign exchange resources, have placed the income from tourism as one of the important sources of foreign exchange earnings. It is obvious that tourism sector can be considered as a source of income if it has valuable potentials and tourism resources. On the other hand, with the increase in the country's income and following the increase in investment, we can also witness the country's economic growth. It is obvious that economic growth and having a higher welfare level will also guarantee the growth of tourist economic activity, and the movement towards the expansion of this cycle can lead to the development of these countries as much as possible. Tourism creates employment to a large extent and constitutes one of the biggest (invisible) assets of the world.

Tourism attractions in terms of natural, cultural, ancient, religious resources and They have a great ability to attract tourists, with proper investment in the software and hardware sectors of this industry, and by maintaining their security position in the world, they have been able to earn billions of dollars from this sector. The noteworthy point is that tourism requires less revenue and foreign exchange resources than other industries in terms of investment, and compared to other sectors, compared to other sectors, tourism brings more benefits and income to the governments (Sabbagh, 2013)

Religious tourism is not a new phenomenon, but it has been for many centuries that people travel to religious and holy places for various reasons, including curiosity, worship and participation in religious ceremonies (Olsen, 2006:27). Pilgrimage cities are cities where religious beliefs have been the strongest geographical factor in the religious creation of such cities.Pilgrimage cities in Saudi Arabia, Mecca and Medina, in Iraq, Karbala and Najaf, in India, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, and Allahabad, and in Biryani, the city of Rangoran belonging to Buddhists, in Thailand, the city of Bangkok, in Tibet, the city of Lhasa, in occupied Palestine, the city of Jerusalem, in Italy, the Vatican, and in Spain, the cities of the religious cities of St. Sebastian are examples of religious cities. In Iran, holy Mashhad, Qom and Shiraz are the best examples of religious cities that also have an Islamic cultural role. The city of Mashhad has a special position in the country due to its special geographical, religious and cultural conditions. The annual presence of about 30 million pilgrims in the metropolis of Mashhad, considering its population of 2.420 million, indicates that the management of tourism reception in these cities, especially on this large scale, is a must (Mafi and Saqaei, 2018: 23). The stunning growth of tourism in the world has caused a huge amount of capital to flow into the world economy and different countries are competing very hard to get the largest share of global capital, especially because the activity of tourism, due to the wide range of services it provides, provides the possibility of many jobs at different levels, and the extraordinary profitability of this activity has such an attraction that some countries, despite the lack of natural resources and lack of a brilliant background in history and civilization, create tourist attractions. They are determined to achieve large revenues in the economic activity of tourism in such a way that tourism is even the first word in the economy of some of these countries. It remains that the number of international tourists around the world has grown by 5% due to the serious performance of Europe, Asia and the Pacific and the Middle East, which has reached 747 million people, which is 38 million more than the same period last year. Since 2 years, the decrease in the number of tourists has increased by 7 percent [1] Many of these countries consider this economic activity as the main source of income, job creation, private sector growth, and infrastructure sector development. The economic activity of tourism is very important all over the world, especially in developing countries, where other forms of economic development such as production or extraction of natural resources are not cost-effective (G. Chak Wai, 1933:23). According to the definition presented, tourism includes all the phenomena and relationships resulting from the relationships of tourists, suppliers and sellers of tourism products, governments and host communities, in the process of attracting and welcoming tourists (Mcintosh, 1995:9).

In this research, we are facing a type of tourism called religious tourism Today, religious tourism with all its different components and types, due to its distinct structural and functional features, has been able to be placed in the context of global tourism, so that its sphere of influence has covered the whole world (Santos, 2004:4). Religious tourism is one of the oldest and most prosperous past and present tourisms around the world (Ajit, 2004:215). Religious attractions, shrines and holy places attract a large number of tourists every year. Hospitality facilities such as inns and pilgrims' houses have their own special characteristics due to the social, cultural and ideological context, which is very diverse in every country. Travels that have a religious theme are placed on a wide spectrum, which at the end of a spectrum are holy places that attract a large part of the people of a region, such as large churches in Europe, which are admired by Christians, and at the other end of the spectrum are those who turn to these places who want to be healed, among which Lourdes in France can be mentioned. The city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia or the Vatican in the center of the Catholic world are among the religious places that are of interest to many religious travelers (Gay Chak Wai, 1933:78). The holy city of Mashhad is also known as the second largest religious city in the world after Mecca. In this type of tourism, the main motive for visiting holy places and shrines is that the accommodations and the type of facilities are effective during the stay, but the household income does not play a significant role in the main motive for visiting these places (Fatemi, 2008: 24).