An analysis of the spiritual experience of foreign female tourists in Iran

Abstract

Spiritual experience is one of the growing potentials and attractions in many tourist destinations, and involves a wide range of religious and secular tourists. This paper aims to analyze the motives and factors affecting the spiritual experiences of foreign female tourists in Iran. The required data were collected using 383 questionnaires from foreign female tourists in the hotels where they stayed, or at airports on their way to their country. Then the data were analyzed by applying correlation test and multi-linear regression analysis. The results of study show that, being in harmony with the nature is the most important motive for foreign female tourists traveling to Iran. Among the characteristics of tourist destinations, natural geography, history and culture lie as the most important factors affecting the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists visiting Iran.IntroductionReligion and spirituality have been the most important motives of tourists for traveling in the old time. There is a common agreement on the proximity of these two concepts but spirituality and religion don’t necessarily cover each other. The spirituality concept has become much wider and includes issues including health, social relationships, happiness, vivacity, self-esteem, calmness, sublimity and God. Men and women are different in spiritual aspects. According to some psychologists, women are more religious than men, and have more tendency to spirituality and religious activities (Rich, 2012 Hajizadeh-Meimndi, Ebrahimi-Sadrabadi, 1389). Also, psychologists believe that, tendency to religious affairs is more in women due to the harmony and consistency of spiritual and religious views with women’s souls. Regarding the differences in men’s and women’s traveling and the differences in their incentives, Bond (1997) states that the traveling of alone women beyond their country borders has recently increased significantly. Women tend to take journeys to get experiences and communicational skills as well as to attain awareness and confidence. The statistics show a significant increase in the number of women’s traveling. Therefore, the activists of tourism industry pay special attention to the women’s sector in the market and the economy of travel and tourism. Women are considered as one of the new markets in tourism industry, and understanding their spiritual experiences became a main priority. Female tourists look for different destinations to get the experiences and because of the diversity of expectation form spiritual experience, the need for various destinations to satisfy the different groups of spiritual tourists is felt more than ever. Iran can be a special destination for female tourists, due to its geographical, cultural and historic situation. Climatic diversity and natural landscapes shaped by climates, heights, plains, seas and coastal areas, deserts in addition to historic, cultural and religious attractions and the existence of different ethnic groups with their own special customs and ceremonies, provide very diverse and unique conditions for women’s spiritual experiences in Iran.However, existing knowledge on spiritual experiences of foreign female tourists in Iran and its determining factors are very limited.Research MethodologyThis study is a descriptive-exploratory research and the statistical society is the foreign female tourists in Iran and the measuring instrument is questionnaire, of which 383 copies have been distributed among and completed by foreign female tourists, using convenience sampling. The data have been analyzed by SPSS software. Descriptive statistics indices such as frequency and percentage have been applied to search and analyze the information related to general characteristics of the respondents. Correlation tests and multi-linear regression analysis have also been used in the inferential statistics part.Research FindingsThe findings of this study show that three aspects of demographics, travel motives and the destination characteristics, predict 85 percent of the variance of the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists in Iran.The characteristics of Iran as a tourist destination with beta of 0.355 had the highest effects on the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists. In this study the Crouch and Ritchie model of destination competitiveness was used to determine the tourist destination characteristics. Therefore, the effects of 8 variables including history and culture of the natural geography, infrastructure, costs, security, hospitality, events and situation on the tourists’ spiritual experiences were examined using the multi-linear regression analysis. The results show that the destination characteristics predict 94 percent of the variance of the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists in Iran. Among the destination characteristics, a) factors of history and culture, b) natural geography, c) infrastructure, d) costs, e) security, f) hospitality, g) events and h) situation, in order, had the highest effects on the quality of the spiritual experiences of the foreign female tourists in Iran.ConclusionBased on Crouch model, the destination characteristics are among important factors in tourists’ choice for different purposes. According to the results of this research, foreign female tourists have considered the features of their destination as the most effective factor in their spiritual experiences. Fox’s research (1996) on the women participating in spiritual experiences in pristine places indicated that the nature is seen as a powerful, healing and spiritual element. Furthermore, women on journeys have energy more similar to the nature and can get more spiritual awareness. As discussed above, spiritual tourism for women could play very important role as a novel strategy for tourism marketing in programming macro-tourism in Iran and branding women’s spiritual tourism can be conducted for this valuable guideline.Particularly in advertising via internet and TV programs, Iran should introduce itself as a new destination for female spiritual tourists. Providing necessary facilities and infrastructures and designing trip packages for female spiritual tourists are from necessary steps toward female spiritual tourism. In this research we offered a general framework to examine female spiritual experiences and examined the impact of three main factors including: the destination characteristics, travel motives and the tourists’ demographic features. The destination characteristics in the female tourists’ view, had very significant role in their spiritual experiences. Furthermore, harmony with nature was found as the most important motive to have the spiritual experience in Iran.In the future studies one may examine the effects of different environments including the nature or religious places or even historical buildings to discover the effects of places on spiritual experiences. Also, the effects of each of these aspects and indices on spiritual experiences for two groups of men and women may be assessed and compared separately.

Keywords

• experience
• spiritual experience
• foreign female tourists
• iran