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 Planning
Mohammad Mehdi Azizi; Bahare Bahra
Abstract
Highlights In the process of urban regeneration, the establishment and strengthening of decision-making should be through evaluation. The article has tried to achieve a generalizable structure for evaluation after the implementation of flagship development at neighborhood scale. In flagship development ...
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Highlights In the process of urban regeneration, the establishment and strengthening of decision-making should be through evaluation. The article has tried to achieve a generalizable structure for evaluation after the implementation of flagship development at neighborhood scale. In flagship development at the scale of neighborhood, more important notice should be given to the residential parameter. Introduction. Urban development through development of internal neighborhoods is an attempt to restore urban life to the deteriorated areas of cities. In order to facilitate this process, planning and implementation of flagship development has been considered as one of the policies used for urban neighborhood regeneration and provision of the requirements for the residents’ presence and concern for different dimensions of development.Regeneration of the historical and deteriorated areas in cities has been addressed in the recent literature on urban planning worldwide. Inefficiency is a major problem in historical and deteriorated urban areas, where automatic update and change is no longer possible.As in many other countries, the current process of extension of deteriorated urban areas in Iran indicates that problems will be complicated if no precautionary measures are taken, and no appropriate policies or operating plans are adopted.Implementation of flagship development has been considered as a solution.A main purpose of flagship development is to help achieve urban regeneration goals, an approach taken up as a comprehensive strategy for making positive changes in a place with signs of deterioration. This strategy is aimed at quality improvement, with integrated economic, social, and physical goals. Flagship development is applied in order to improve a place that is in the process of decaying and deteriorating, and its advocatesare agreed that an urban area will not achieve regeneration without such projects, since it causes a series of reactions that will lead to regeneration of the urban fabric. On the other hand, it is not the case that we hope to achieve development over a vast urban area simply by relying on this project, as many projects all around the world have failed to achieve their main purpose, i.e. to regenerate a decaying fabric. Theoretical Framework. Evaluation is possible throughout the urban regeneration process, from the stage of problem identification to the implementation of projects and the review of the decision-making process. Through presentation of mobility and development indicators, therefore, the present study has developed into an appropriate, generalizable structure for assessment of the impact of flagship development and catalyst projects after implementation at the neighborhood scale. It evaluates the effects of an example of these projects in the Gowdal Mosalla neighborhood in the historical city of Yazd, Iran. The theoretical framework of the research involves three main parameters based on the overall literature and practical experience: the physical parameter, the residential parameter, and the activity parameter. The activity parameter includes the indicators of dependency burden, percentage of active population, percentage of commercial use, active commercial use, employment rate, and men’s rate of immigration. The physical parameter includes the indicators of access to infrastructure, access to parking space, population density, residential renovation, percentage of non-arid land, sustainable buildings, new buildings, percentage of administrative use. The residential parameter includes the indicators of percentage of indigenous population, percentage of tenancy, active housing, single-family housing, home access to primary schools, access to local parks, access to sports venues, youth population, number of students, level of education, and coefficient of residence. Methodology. A research method based on the quantitative methodology, regression analysis was used in this study to analyze the effects of each indicator on each factor, and the matrix of impact assessment, known as Leopold Matrix, was used for evaluation after the implementation of the flagship development and the neighborhood regeneration. The final results were obtained after 25 evaluation indicators pertaining to urban regeneration and flagship development were extracted from the established overall literature and practical experience, and secondary data on 93 urban blocks of the Gowdal Mosalla neighborhood were analyzed in SPSS 21. Results and Discussion. The research findings demonstrate that the project performed at the Faculty of Arts and Architecture of Yazd has the greatest effects on the physical parameter, followed by the residential parameter and, eventually, the activity parameter at the scale of the Gowdal Mosalla neighborhood, and it can be approved as a positive flagship development through provision of modification options. The results indicate the closest relationships between the indicator of native quality and the residential status of the fabric, between the indicator of access to services and the status of the residential environment, and between the indicators of population at the age of activity and percentage of commercial land use and the activity and economic status of the neighborhood. Population density, administrative level, and the stability of buildings affect the mobility and physical development of the neighborhood. Conclusion. In future planning, it is necessary to consider indicators that focus on improvement of the residential parameter, especially through consolidation of the existing indigenous population and absorption of the young population. Moreover, the extracted theoretical framework will be effective for planning flagship developments and evaluating them in future practice and research.
