Urban Tourism
Mohammad Bagher Nadi; reza akbari; Mohsen Rafian
Abstract
Today, urban branding is considered as a way to increase the attractiveness of the city, which differentiates cities by shaping or changing the mental images of the audience. This important, despite the many positive consequences - mentioned in the present research model - and the high potential of Iranian ...
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Today, urban branding is considered as a way to increase the attractiveness of the city, which differentiates cities by shaping or changing the mental images of the audience. This important, despite the many positive consequences - mentioned in the present research model - and the high potential of Iranian cities for urban branding, according to library and field studies in our country and in the form of official branding plans has received less attention. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to create a model to facilitate urban branding for tourism development and due to the high potential of Yazd for urban branding - including that based on library and field studies, the present study has 17 diverse brands and so far it didn't have the official urban branding plan - this city has been selected as a study case. The method of the present study is qualitative and tries to extract the model from semi-structured interviews with professionals, academics and elites using Grounded Theory. The interviewees were selected using the chain reference technique (snowball) and in the twelfth sample, some theoretical saturation was formed, but the research process continued until the fourteenth interview. The results of the study indicate that "the need for global competition in cities", "economic problems and the need to pay attention to tourism and urban branding" and "high potential of Yazd city for tourism development and urban branding" are among the causal conditions of the research and makes the need to study the issue. This research also shows with a set of Strategies such as: "Forming a special working group on branding in Yazd", "Attracting the participation of public institutions in the development and implementation of branding projects", "Training managers and employees to better implement urban branding projects" and " "Holding national and international celebrations and events for brand development" can be effective in tourism development through branding in Yazd city and the consequences of them are given in the end.
Urban Design
Azadeh Alizadeh; samaneh khosravaninezhad; Mohammad Falahati; reza akbari
Abstract
Highlights The most important criteria in nightlife spaces is "Being" and "safety" has the least impact on creating an urban night space. Factors that affect night urban spaces design can be classified in two categories: "Creator factors" and "Supporter factors". Creator factors are related ...
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Highlights The most important criteria in nightlife spaces is "Being" and "safety" has the least impact on creating an urban night space. Factors that affect night urban spaces design can be classified in two categories: "Creator factors" and "Supporter factors". Creator factors are related to attraction and producing the night space and the Supporter factors are related to its population maintenance and how space is used and Determines the type and quality of space experience. Introduction Cities are changing in the contemporary world, and the most important tools for this transformation involve the time component and it synthesis with culture, art, and technology to reproduce urban spaces. The result is the concept of nightlife and urban night spaces. Due to the importance of time in contemporary life and changing time structures resulting from lifestyle transformation, better utilization of time in urban life can be achieved in these spaces, and the vitality of daily activities can extend into the night hours. In the city of Yazd, Iran, night spaces encourage greater presence in space, especially in hot seasons, and enhance the city vitality, which is currently one of the most important urban management concerns, temporally distributing population density and keeping them in space for longer periods of time. Given that night urban spaces require their own design considerations, this study was aimed at explaining the factors and criteria that affect urban night space design. Theoretical Framework Two dimensions were identified for night spaces through a review of the literature on the definition of nightlife and 24-hour cities and their analysis from the aspect of night urban space design. These included sociability arising from the physical space and perception of the function of space. Then, criteria and indicators were defined for the above dimensions. Methodology After the effective criteria were extracted from the literature and experience, they were prioritized using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and evaluated with respect to Kashani Street in Yazd. The most important advantage of this hybrid method, focused more on the qualitative aspect, involved the assessment and analysis of quantitative data in urban spaces and confirmation of the accuracy of the results through interpretation and enrichment. In order to prioritize the criteria in the quantitative method, the questionnaire tool and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Friedman tests were used (The reliability of the questionnaire was 0.812). In the qualitative method, these criteria were analyzed using environmental assessment techniques (field study and observation at different times in the period from 7 PM to 12 AM and open interviews) on Kashani Street. Results and Discussion The prioritization of the criteria indicated that flexibility had no effect on urban nightlife. Moreover, attendance exhibited the greatest and safety had the least impacts on the development of urban night spaces. The criteria were prioritized as attendance, security, inclusiveness, attractiveness, legibility, continuity, enclosure, spatial enticement, eventfulness, visual accessibility, and safety. A qualitative evaluation of these criteria in regard to Kashani Street demonstrated that the most important criteria, including attendance and security, provided the greatest potentials of this street for turning into an urban night space due to the density of activities and appropriate population. In contrast, criteria such as attractiveness, continuity, spatial enticement, and eventfulnessrequired plenty of design and planning to create urban night spaces. Conclusion Based on the results, the design considerations of night urban spaces were classified into two categories: creator factors and supporter factors. The former concerns attraction and construction of night spaces, while the latter pertains to their population maintenance and how space is used to specify the type and quality of space experience. The creator factors included attendance, security, inclusiveness, and attractiveness. The supporter factors included legibility, continuity, enclosure, spatial enticement, eventfulness, visual accessibility, and safety. The creator factors indicated the potentials of spaces for creation of the night space, reinforced through synthesis with the supporter factors and bringing about the correct performance of night spaces through improvement of the quality of the space experience. This proposed two-fold framework could serve to complement the other aspects of night urban spaces (economic, cultural, governance, tourism, etc.) and to function as a guide to design of such spaces. In Yazd, night spaces provide contemporary responses to the new lifestyle to meet the needs of different groups, especially the youth, who can lead cultural challenges to creative use of their abilities. Combination of nocturnal spaces with urban tourism can create a new experience of being there at historical places and presenting the contemporary assets of the city along with its historical assets. It provides a booming service economy for sustainable urban development.
