Tourism Management Studies
Year:2015 | Volume:9 | Issue:28|Papers Count:6

This study investigate the role of social media in Iran is developing a tourism marketing. This way with the help of a questionnaire survey on 250 travel offices marketing experts specializing in domestic and overseas leisure tourism in the city of Tehran, they were carried out. According to this study, the role of social media, particularly media images and video clips to function in the development of electronic tourism industry should be more considered. The photos and videos introducing tourists to the tourism potential in the virtual space is a factor that has a direct impact on the choice of tourist destinations by international tourists. With the increasing use of social networks, content communities, blogs, e-tourism marketing capabilities increase, but overall we can say that social media still have not been able to find its place in the development of e-tourism marketing and this difference is due to the characteristics of different marketing communication and social media with the mass media.

Nowadays, tourism is one of the major constituents and it is considered as one of the main economic sources and an affecting factor on economic development of human societies. Tourism expansion is also affected on foreign exchange and national income, employment and other macroeconomic indicators. According to the importance of this subject and the role of tourism in economic development, this study first tries to evaluate and prioritize 16 provinces of Iran in terms of the types of tourism attractions and some of the economic growth indices using TOPSIS technique and then it tries to study the relationship between tourism attractions and economic growth indices using multivariable regression.Results indicate that Fars, Tehran and Khorasan Razavi provinces have the highest ratings in terms of tourist attractions. And man-made attractions effect on economic development more than natural and historical attractions.

Tourism is an important activity with economic, social and environmental effects on cities. Given this importance, tourism development policy is an approach that urban societies have paid attention to it so that increasing its results they can minimize its negative effects. The purpose of this paper is studying economic, social and environmental effects of tourism on development of Qeshm island cities. This study is an explorative research that based on descriptive-analytic method and collecting library and field information. Statistical samples of this study include all of household heads in Qeshm city; based on Cochran formula 371 heads were selected through simple random sampling.Questionnaire was used in order to collect data; Cranach's alpha was 0.78 that indicates its good reliability. Collected data were categorized by SPSS software and by Chi-Square Test meaningfulness of data was determined and analyzed. Study results show that in economic context, tourism in addition to job creation, income increase ad qualitative and quantitative improvement of handicrafts, has led to price increase, land trade and building increase. In social context, it has led to improvement in education and health, increase in citizens’ interaction and security. In environmental although it has had positive effects but it had many negative consequences such as pollution, traffic increase, land application change and decay of valuable urban texture that are contrary to urban development goals. So by material planning and attempt to have optimized use of tourists’ entry, economic condition and consequently social, environmental and structural conditions can be improved.

Analyzing the effective factors on people's demands, can be help to predict resorts and recreational needs and successful management of such areas. Alavi Park in Qom city can attract many tourists but it lacks developments in constructions and equipment necessary for parks and recreational areas. We used questionnaire to analyze the affecting factors on outdoor recreation in Alavi Park. Results showed that the correlation between variables was significant for age, marital status, education level, income and motivation, though the correlation coefficient was not significant for gender, job and park accessibility. Most visitors aged between 15-30 years old, married and preferred to use the park in spring, which was expectable with regard to demographics and climate of Qom.Filling the leisure time, rest and relaxation, picnic, entertainments and using children playground were main motivations of the park visitors which was correlated with quantity and quality of facilities in the park.

In recent years, knowledge creation and knowledge management have become dominant factors for organizations competitiveness and organizational performance and success. Successful organizations are those that consistently create new knowledge, disseminate it widely throughout the organization and quickly embody it in new technologies, products and services. The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between knowledge management, organizational entrepreneurship and organizational performance. The study took place at Iran Cultural Heritage, Handcrafts and Tourism organization. The research instruments were knowledge management enablers, knowledge management process, organizational entrepreneurship, and organizational performance questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research’s hypotheses. The results showed that knowledge management enablers have a direct impact on knowledge management process; and knowledge management process has a direct impact on organizational performance and organizational entrepreneurship.

Considering the importance and role of tour guides in providing domestic and international tourists with tourism services and with regard to scant attention given to tour guide training in Iran, this study investigates the current status of tour guide training in Iran. The main objective of this study is to recognize and determine the present condition of tour guide training and to present how to maximize the efficiency of training programs in Iran. This investigation was a descriptive study and was conducted by taking insights from tourism experts and professors as well as trained guides. In this cross- sectional study, a questionnaire with 34 questions was designed and sent to 120 qualified experts, referred to above. The related data was gathered and analyzed by descriptive statistical methods and K2 test.The conclusion that can be reached is that, the quality of education, technological devices, facilities, physical resources, and large-scale tourism management and policy making are all about average. Therefore, a revision of educational materials and an increase in facilities in educational centers seem inevitable. As it is clear from the findings, the quality of tour guide training in Iran, with regard to educational programs and technological devices used, and facilities and physical resources employed, is around average. To get at a favorable level, therefore, it is necessary to make appropriate large-scale plans in universities to increase the number of educational centers and enhance the quality of tour guide education in the country’s tourist attracting provinces.