Urban Tourism
Mohammad Bagher Nadi; reza akbari; Mohsen Rafian
Abstract
Highlights
- Citizens, tourists, students, investors, and urban management as important beneficiaries of urban branding.
- Importance of establishing a destination management organization in Iran.
- Importance of creating an urban brand for the competitive advantage of the city.
- Identification ...
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Highlights
- Citizens, tourists, students, investors, and urban management as important beneficiaries of urban branding.
- Importance of establishing a destination management organization in Iran.
- Importance of creating an urban brand for the competitive advantage of the city.
- Identification of the various labels given to Yazd with respect to heritage and history, religion and spirituality, industry and production, and the environment.
Introduction
The choice of cities for life, tourism, education, and investment depends on their perceived images, and the process of creating a positive image of a city is called urban branding. Urban branding is one of the most important factors in the development of the tourism industry. In Iran, this issue has received less attention despite the high potentials of many cities for branding (Dinnie, 2013, p. 16). Therefore, the purpose of this article was to examine the various aspects of this issue in order to provide a model to facilitate urban branding in the development of tourism.
Theoretical Framework
A brand is a concept designed to develop a product (Chan et al., 2021, p. 331), and involves two definition categories. In the first category, a brand is defined as a set of related assets and liabilities and a brand name (Gómez et al., 2018, p. 191). In the second category, it is defined as a collection of perceptions that are there in people’s minds (Hildreth, 2012, p. 4). The brand of a city, like that of a product, is an external signal that evokes emotions, increases awareness, and influences behaviors (Gómez et al., 2018, p. 191), but it may be more complex because of ownership, stakeholder participation, and brand development (Herget et al., 2015, p. 120; Yang et al., 2018, p. 1).
Methodology
Since official branding plans are not very common in Iran, and no official branding plan was developed in the city of Yazd, a qualitative method has been used in the present study along with the grounded theory. For this purpose, the first group was selected for in-depth semi-structured interviews, which included professionals in urban management, tourism, and academics, based on criteria such as familiarity with the concepts of branding and tourism and with the city of Yazd and availability and preparedness for cooperation. The next groups were introduced for interview by the same group. Sampling continued until no more new idea was created, and the research achieved theoretical saturation and adequacy. It should be noted that the twelfth sample achieved partial saturation, but the research process continued until the fourteenth.
Result and Discussion
Many studies concerning urban branding and tourism indicate that urban branding has a positive effect on tourism prosperity–including (Feyzi et al., 2020; Herget et al., 2015; Jojic, 2018; Mousavi et al., 2017; Shutaieva et al., 2020). The present research was conducted to facilitate branding in Yazd based on the results of these studies and in line with some others–including (Ghanbari et al., 2021; Hankinson, 2007; Menvariyan et al., 2013; Mohammadifar, 2018; Setiadi et al., 2021)which have sought to provide strategies and present a model for further prosperity of tourism through creation or enhancement of branding. Thus, it can be effective in the creation or enhancement of urban branding and monitoring of its proper implementation besides formation of a special working group on branding or establishment of a destination management organization to adopt strategies such as attracting the participation of public institutions in development and implementation of branding plans, training managers and employees to better implement branding projects, holding international celebrations and events for brand development, and developing the tourism infrastructure. This will also have positive consequences from various economic, social, environmental, physical, and urban management aspects.
Conclusion
- The five groups of citizens, tourists, students, investors, and urban management are the stakeholders who benefit in the short term and in the long term from urban branding if the city is properly branded. Therefore, different cities in the world need to adopt appropriate branding and competition strategies to attract the above stakeholders for life, tourism, education, and investment.
- Despite their high potentials for branding, many cities in Iran do not have urban branding administrators, and the tourism sector is even spread in organizations such as municipalities, directorates for cultural heritage, and chambers of commerce. A destination management organization must be established to enhance integrated urban management, and its branches in different cities must undertake to create or enhance an urban brand and monitor its continuity.
- In urban branding, it is important to consider the distinctive, competitive identity of the city, so it is necessary to manage several brands that are sometimes developed unofficially and unilaterally in different cities (as in Yazd), as brand confusion in cities indicates a lack of coordination between different organizations, and creates challenges that outweigh its benefits.
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.
