Persian literary heritage tourism: travel agents’ perspectives in Shiraz, Iran

ABSTRACT

Literature is a cultural component and literary niche tourism is a novel strategy for preserving and transferring literature heritage. This research has four major purposes: (1) to discover why Shiraz can be a destination for promoting literary tourism in Iran; (2) to identify strategies for stimulating this niche tourism; (3) to measure travel agents’ awareness of literary tourism; and (4) to investigate the attitude of travel agent managers towards this niche market. The results illustrated that travel agents are interested in the literary tourism development and they have a high interest in offering and organizing literary tours for tourists, but they are not familiar with this concept.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative city
• literary tourism
• literature
• niche tourism
• Shiraz

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Neda Torabi Farsani is an assistant professor in Tourism, Art University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. She received her PhD degree in Tourism in 2012 from the University of Aveiro, Portugal. She has also some papers in the fields of tourism published in international conferences and journals. She has been involved in writing several book chapters and she is the editor of the book entitled: Geoparks and Geotourism: New Approaches to Sustainability for the twenty-first Century.

Babak Saffari completed his PhD degree in the field of economics and he is an assistant professor at economics department, University of Isfahan, Iran. His research interests are economy, energy economics, urban economy and urban tourism. He has also some papers in the fields of economy, and tourism economy published in international conferences and national journals.

Zahed Shafiei completed his BA degree in Iran in the field of Urban Geography and planning. He continued his postgraduate studies at the University of Leicester, UK. In 2011, he received his PhD degree from Newcastle University, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. He is an assistant professor at the Art University of Isfahan. His research interests include Tourism Management and Governance.

Armaghan Shafieian is a Master Student in Tourism at Art University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. She has also some papers in the fields of tourism presented in national conferences. Her research interests are tourism, cultural tourism and niche tourism.