Barriers to collaboration among tourism industry stakeholders. Case study: Mashhad Metropolis

In a tourist destination there are usually various stakeholders with different goals. Achieving cooperation and integration among them is a major concern for policy makers and urban managers. In this regard, the role of tourist destination management becomes important more than ever. Therefore, cooperation between organizations can be an effective model but very little researches have been done about this topic. To fill the gap, this study tends to analyze the collaboration between tourism-related public and private institutions in the city of Mashhad.This study applies qualitative case study methodology approach. Data are collected using semi-structured interview. The results showed that the main factors affecting the non-collaboration between related-tourism organizations in Mashhad city include: lack of a systematic approach, weak legal structure, poor planning, lack of integrated tourism management, and the weakness of the policy-making system

Environmental Sustainability Analysis of Rural Settlements Case study: Khoramdareh County

Environmental sustainability of rural settlements based on a systematic viewpoint may be defined as a realization of sustainable development in different social, economic and environmental aspects of rural areas. Achieving this goal requires that we pay more attention to effective elements and factors through a set of sustainability indices. This research was meant to analyze sustainable factors of rural settlement in three dimensions: environmental, social and economic context using multi-criteria decision analysis and explanation of the relationships between its active and effective factors in the rural area of the Khorramdarreh County in the province of Zanjan. The research method used is the descriptive analytic approach. Data from 287 households were sampled randomly from a total of 1143 households in the four villages including: Rahmat Abad, Alvand, Baghdareh and, Sukhariz (out of 15 villages) in the Khorramdarreh County. In the process of doing this research and after calculating the weights, the difference in the sustainability of environmental, social, economic and physical aspects in rural areas of this county have been determined. Data was collected using library and field research through questionnaires. Data analysis was performed by the One-Sample t Test and the Vikur and path analysis techniques, using statistical software SPSS. The findings show that environmental sustainability in the study area is half desirable. Among the different aspects of environmental sustainability, the most effective factors are physical, economic, social and environmental aspects, respectively. Little attention of policy-making –system to socio-cultural and environmental aspects, especially in practice, and rapid and unplanned utilization of production resources are the most important factors affecting this situation in two given dimensions. Although, in programmed documents the planning system agents emphasize on the socio-cultural sustainability - especially environmental aspects, they ignore the implementation of approved policies in action. However, the role of villagers without necessary training in rapid utilization of resources should not be neglected

Boolean Analysis of Factors Affecting Women’s Participation in Rural Tourism

Women’s participation is a significant development priority in tourism, especially rural tourism. Despite their critical role in rural tourism, women face different constraints and limitations that prevent them from fully participating in local tourist activities. This study explores the most influential factors on women’s participation in rural tourism, using qualitative methods of inquiry (semi-structured interviews and observations) to collect data from 17 women who are active in rural tourism in the villages of Khorasan Razavi, Iran. Eight fundamental causes were identified and classified into macro- and micro-level factors that affect women’s participation in rural tourism, using the Boolean algebra analysis. The findings show socio-geographic proximity, a newly emerging theme, and patriarchal structure influence women’s participation at the macro-level. Similarly, self-confidence, family support, financial assistance, and the absence of role conflict at the micro-level are necessary and sufficient causes to influence women to participate and overcome challenging situations in rural tourism activities

Urban sprawl functional-structural changes in neighborhood settlements: Case of study Shiraz

Sprawl is one of the forms of expansion that has entered the literature of urban management and planning in the last half-century. Iranian cities are very good example for city sprawl and they have experienced this kind of expansion in very short period and very fast. This paper aims to identify, describe, and analyze Shiraz scatter and sprawl development and its resulting functional-structure, this research is based on exploratory, descriptive and analytical methods. Data collection in this research is through the secondary data and fieldwork research techniques. Data analysis demands descriptive and inferential statistics (Pearson regression correlation). This study suggests that since 1952 Shiraz city has experienced rapid growth, continuous and non-continuous. The proportion of scatter and sprawl development with respect to Shiraz expansion increased from 22.02 in 1957-1967 to 72.8 in 1977-2007. There are three period the first rapid development between 1957 and 2967 after that 5 years gap and the next period which is longer from 30 years between 1977 and 2007.  This turning points is in two specific periods are as the result of some consequences: Conversion of agricultural function as a predominant economic function in neighboring communities, into multi-functional agricultural function with emphasis upon services; of some of the rural settlements into Shiraz; The development of extended spatial, administrative, economic, social and structural changes in residential part of Shiraz. Therefore, socioeconomic activities are the main cause of urban sprawl in Shiraz and made Shiraz the most attractive place for in Fars Province. Population growth with correlation between degree of Shiraz scatter development and number of people engaged to service sector by 0.9 has caused a dramatically decline in agriculture (-0.8) and industry (-0.811) sectors. As result rapid urban population growth rate correlation by (0.127) and urbanization coefficient (0.726) and it shows urban and rural migration very important role on scatter development