Arts & Humanities Journal

Title: Designing Cultural Tourism Development Model Using the Social Network Analysis Technique (Case Study: Shiraz)

Abstract:

Iran has a very ancient diverse and historical culture and is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of Antiquities in most historical periods of human civilization and culture even in prehistoric ear. Among different cities of Iran, Shiraz, with having the huge and ancient complex of Persepolis and city of Pārseh, annually is visited by a large number of domestic and foreign cultural-historical tourists. The purpose of this research was to design and model the factors affecting the development of cultural tourism in the city of Shiraz. The study target population included the elites and experts in the tourism industry. Accordingly, through the study of literature and reviewing the background, a large number of essential concepts in the development of cultural tourism were derived that the most important factors were categorized into 10 general groups. Using Ucinet software, the centrality, network density and the geodesic distance were measured. Finally, the final graph of model of cultural tourism development of Shiraz was designed with the help of Draw Net tool, Ucinet software. Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that in the development of this type of tourism, cultural and economic factors will have the greatest impact. Thus, it is expected that the results would further draw the attention of Shiraz cultural tourism planners. Other effective factors should be considered in planning and resource allocation in order of their priority as follows: Educational, infrastructure, management, marketing, natural, political, positional, competitive and social factors.