https://www.toc-sj.com/ Tourism of Culture en daily 1 Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0330 Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0330 https://www.toc-sj.com/article_244849.html War and armed conflicts have always been among the most significant sources of instability in human societies, leaving extensive impacts on the economy, culture, security, and international relations. In this context, the tourism industry, as one of the most sensitive yet influential economic and cultural sectors, is affected by the consequences of war more than many other fields. Tourism is an industry built upon a sense of security, peace, and trust, and any form of insecurity, political tension, or military conflict can rapidly disrupt travel flows. In times of war, the first noticeable consequence is the sharp decline in the number of tourists entering conflict-affected countries or even their neighboring regions. Travelers generally choose destinations that enjoy political stability and social security, and news related to war, insecurity, and violence quickly shapes their perceptions. Even when conflicts are limited to only part of a country, media coverage can portray the entire destination as unsafe, causing a nationwide downturn in the tourism industry. On the other hand, wars often inflict severe damage on tourism infrastructure as well. Hotels, accommodation centers, roads, airports, museums, and even historical and cultural heritage sites may be destroyed or rendered unusable during conflicts. This issue not only leads to a decline in travel but also affects local economies, employment, and the livelihoods of communities dependent on tourism. In many countries, tourism constitutes a significant share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and damage to this sector can make economic recovery even more difficult. Nevertheless, the relationship between war and tourism is not limited to negative impacts alone. The experience of some countries has shown that tourism can become a tool for economic, social, and even psychological reconstruction after war. If supported by targeted planning, effective management, and coherent policymaking, war-affected regions can utilize tourism capacity to revive local economies and attract investment. The presence of tourists in such areas, in addition to generating income, can also symbolize the return of stability and trust within society. In this regard, the role of the media and the way war is represented are of great importance. Media outlets can create a crisis-ridden image of a destination by emphasizing insecurity, or conversely, through responsible and professional reporting, they can reflect the restoration of peace and security. In today’s world, where public opinion is heavily influenced by social media and international media networks, managing the image of a tourist destination has become as important as managing the crisis itself on the ground. Many countries, after overcoming military crises, have sought to present a new and secure image of themselves to the world through tourism diplomacy and targeted promotion. From a cultural and humanitarian perspective, tourism can also play a role beyond that of a purely economic activity. Tourists traveling to affected regions may represent a form of human solidarity and symbolic support for local communities. Furthermore, the presence of tourists and researchers can increase global awareness of the conditions of war-affected societies and help attract humanitarian support.Ultimately, war and tourism are two complex and interconnected phenomena that share a reciprocal relationship. Although war can push the tourism industry into severe crisis, tourism in post-crisis conditions can also become a tool for reconstruction, peacebuilding, and strengthening human connections. Therefore, paying attention to crisis management, destination image reconstruction, and the cultural and social capacities of tourism is an undeniable necessity for countries that have experienced war and tension. https://www.toc-sj.com/article_233972.html Natanz, a Bāghshahr (Garden City) born from the historical interrelationship between humans and nature within the valley-shaped landscape enclosed by the Karkas Mountains, embodies a distinctive landscape identity for this territory. Considering the city’s unique natural characteristics and cultural landscape, Natanz possesses significant potential for attracting visitors, and tourism has long been viewed as a strategy for enhancing urban livability. However, the city as it stands today cannot be regarded as a tourism-oriented city. At the same time, given the authorities’ efforts to promote tourism development, Natanz is currently exposed to various pressures related to tourism expansion. Therefore, before implementing any new development plans, it is essential to critically examine the reasons for the inefficiency of previous projects to address past shortcomings and mitigate existing deficiencies in future strategies. This article seeks to investigate the essence of Natanz’s Bāghshahr identity through a holistic and ontological approach, employing concepts such as place (makān) to explore the underlying causes of inefficiency in tourism development across three levels: Area of Intervention: Revitalization of Urban Spaces, Area of Influence: Empowerment of the Local Community, and Area of Comprehensive: The Dominance of National Development over the City. Furthermore, it aims to interpret the role of Natanz’s Bāghshahr character in shaping the city’s tourism development trajectory. This study adopts a descriptive-analytical methodology, grounded in field-exploratory observation and library-based research. It employs the walking approach, recognized as a distinctive method in landscape research, to investigate the subject matter. This study reveals that the tourism development of Natanz, instead of being grounded in an understanding of the urban landscape, has resulted from spatial reductionism, heritage commodification, and the absence of a multidimensional and integrative perspective. In other words, tourism development has approached the city not as a holistic place, but through a fragmented and object-oriented lens, one that perceives heritage merely as a museum exhibit, detached from the cultural landscape and the unique characteristics of Natanz. Moreover, rather than viewing tourism as a strategic tool for enhancing urban livability and the local community’s well-being, heritage has been treated as a commodity serving the tourism industry. For a city like Natanz, a historic Bāghshahr rich in cultural manifestations of this place-making element, an ontological understanding of its Bāghshahr identity can significantly contribute to the effectiveness of tourism development and, consequently, to the enhancement of the city’s landscape quality. https://www.toc-sj.com/article_243910.html One of the fundamental challenges of contemporary cities, particularly in Iran, is the absence of a coherent visual identity in urban spaces. This issue not only affects the quality of urban life experience but also creates an obstacle to attracting tourists and improving the mental image of cities. In this regard, Alborz Province, despite its diverse cultural, historical, and natural capacities, has so far lacked an integrated graphic branding system compatible with its local characteristics. This study aims to examine the possibility of designing a comprehensive graphic branding system for Alborz Province in order to create visual coherence in urban spaces and provide the basis for strengthening cultural identity, urban aesthetics, and tourism appeal. The present study is qualitative and analytical in nature. Data were collected through the study of theoretical sources, review of case studies, and analysis of visual elements. Then, using a comparative approach, the components of visual identity, including the logo, color palette, typography, and graphic symbols, were analyzed in relation to the cultural and functional indicators of the province. The findings show that designing a coherent and locally oriented visual identity system can reduce graphic fragmentation, improve the urban image, and strengthen the cultural identity of Alborz. Within this framework, specific implementation guidelines and criteria are proposed that can be applied not only in Alborz Province, but also as a model for other provinces of the country. https://www.toc-sj.com/article_244018.html This article examines how handicrafts can be re-read as a key component of the creative industries and as a driver of cultural tourism. The case study focuses on Persian Enameling (Khatam-kari) and Persian Enameling (Minakari) in Shiraz. The theoretical framework draws on design thinking, neo-craft, creative economy, and the cultural and creative industries. From the perspective of cultural tourism management, the study aims to strengthen artistic entrepreneurship and the role of the designer-craftsperson as a cultural entrepreneur. Using core concepts such as abductive reasoning, associative thinking, and scenario-based design, the article proposes strategic scenarios for developing handicrafts at three levels: policy-making, tourism-network interaction, and craft innovation. The research data were gathered from official Iranian reports, including materials from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, and field data from Shiraz, as well as academic sources. The findings indicate that, before any executive solution is adopted, strategic policy-making, design-driven innovation, institutional coordination, the integration of heritage with innovation, and stakeholder networking are essential conditions for success in creative tourism. Finally, the article offers practical recommendations for strengthening Shiraz handicrafts, enhancing cultural tourism, and integrating Khatam-kari and Minakari into the value chain of the creative industries. https://www.toc-sj.com/article_244335.html In recent decades, historic urban fabrics in Iranian cities have lost much of their vitality and efficiency under social, economic, and physical transformations, leading to a gradual decline. Despite its historical and cultural assets, the historic fabric of Shiraz is currently confronted with challenges such as a declining native population, insecurity, and stagnation of urban activities. In this context, urban regeneration has emerged as a contemporary approach to addressing the problems of historic fabrics, and the utilization of urban tourism potentials can serve as an effective strategy for revitalizing these spaces. The aim of this study is to identify and prioritize urban tourism indicators influencing the regeneration of historic pathways from the perspective of tourists. The research is applied in purpose and descriptive–analytical in method. In the first stage, the indicators were identified through library studies and documentary analysis. Subsequently, to prioritize them from tourists’ viewpoints, field data were collected via questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS. The findings show that the indicators of “Retail” and “Presentation of Culture and Rituals,” with equal mean ranks, are the most important factors in the regeneration of historic pathways. “Events and Exhibitions” rank third, underscoring the importance of the temporal dimension in revitalizing historic spaces. Other indicators, including “Infrastructure and Transportation Development,” “Attractions,” “Catering Facilities,” “Business and Trade,” and “Educational Facilities,” appear at lower levels of importance. Overall, the results suggest that tourists’ perception of historic corridors relies more on cultural authenticity and lived experience than on physical or service-oriented components. https://www.toc-sj.com/article_244513.html The road, as a structure, is one of the four pillars of the spatial organization of the Iranian city and its most significant independent element. The physical structuring of the road arises from its semantic structuring and its acceptance as a place, rather than a mere object or corridor. It is in this capacity that the road possesses the potential to integrate the city as a landscape phenomenon: a unified physical-semantic system. The semantic structuring of the road is the product of the manifestation of its ontological attributes. If the road is devoid of these ontological attributes, its structural role in the city’s spatial organization becomes disrupted. This is because the city is fundamentally a phenomenon arising from a meaningful, human-dependent order, not a concrete, prescriptive physical entity. In the present article, by selecting the city of Sirjan as a case study, the consequences of the shift in perception of the road—from place to corridor—on the process of place-based urban development are examined. To this end, the trajectory of the city’s transformations from the pre-Islamic era to the contemporary period is investigated, focusing on the road’s role in these changes. Finally, the recent economic transformations linked to the mining industry’s development and its impact on the changing status of the road in the current city’s development are discussed and evaluated. https://www.toc-sj.com/article_247234.html In contemporary sociology of art, museums have become active institutions in the production of meaning and symbolic value. However, the institutional, discursive, and spatial mechanisms shaping the symbolic legitimacy of art in Iranian religious museums have rarely been examined within a coherent theoretical framework. The Astan Quds Razavi Museum, as one of the country’s most significant cultural-religious institutions, provides a suitable context for analyzing this process in relation to religious capital and the authority of the museum institution. This research aims to analyze the formation of the symbolic economy of art in this museum based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory and to explain its role in cultural tourism branding. The central question is: through what mechanisms is the symbolic legitimacy of artworks produced and reproduced in this museum, and what role does religious capital play? This qualitative, descriptive-analytical research adopts a critical-interpretive approach. Using a qualitative case study strategy, data were collected from official documents, artwork descriptions, catalogs, and field observations, and analyzed through thematic analysis within Bourdieu’s conceptual framework (field, cultural capital, symbolic capital, symbolic power). Findings indicate that religious capital plays a central role in legitimizing the museum’s artworks. Mechanisms such as endowment and votive offerings, the descriptive language of artworks, and the spatial organization of the museum have led to a specific symbolic order not necessarily based on autonomous aesthetic logic. This symbolic order underpins a distinct brand of cultural-religious tourism centered on art in service of the sacred, intertwining pilgrimage and museum experience. https://www.toc-sj.com/article_247455.html Today, environmental degradation has transcended physical crisis to become a profound psychological and existential challenge. Focusing on the Sojas-River (Qanlıçay) as a “landscape of suffering,” this study investigates how ecological grief—stemming from riverine decay—can be transitioned from a stagnant state to a dynamic one. The primary objective is to evaluate the mediating role of “authentic storytelling” within “last-chance tourism” frameworks in enhancing ethical responsibility and fostering regional social regeneration. Employing an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach, the study began with 18 semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders and experts, utilizing thematic analysis to identify dimensions of grief—specifically “physical grief,” “identity grief (solastalgia),” and “anticipatory grief”—which informed the development of a quasi-experimental intervention. This intervention was tested on 60 visitors (30 experimental, 30 control) and analyzed via independent t-tests and Cohen’s d in SPSS-26. Findings reveal that exposure to witness-based, authentic narratives significantly increased participants’ willingness to engage in regeneration by 68% (p < 0.001). Large effect sizes (d > 0.8) confirm that storytelling effectively converts suffering into awareness, transforming stagnant grief into “dynamic grief.” Consequently, the study posits that the Sojas-River serves not merely as a threshold landscape of decline, but as a “media-place” for ecological awakening. Ultimately, landscape regeneration necessitates shifting beyond engineering interventions toward the management of meaning and “supportive tourism,” effectively transmuting environmental loss into a vital artery of collective consciousness and ethical stewardship.