Page 16 - World Heritage and Tourism Innovation

Mohammadhossein Dehghan Pour Farashah et al. Exploring the sustainability in a Rural Area

hot. We put wheat in the nests, and the birds stayed promoted alternative forms of tourism, including cul-
in the nests, and it was more attractive to tourists.’ tural and educational tourism and tourist accommo-
They always came to drink water at the pond’s edge dation. In this regard, he has strived to preserve local
and nest in the trees. He has tried to follow sustaina- tangible and intangible heritage as potential tourism
ble tourism in terms of environmental, economic, and resources. On the other hand, by holding architectur-
socio-cultural by respecting the environment, sharing al workshops for the students, he tried to provide a
economic benefits with locals, and providing a first- unique experience and earn the guests’ loyalty.
hand experience for the guests. These activities align
with the sustainable tourism principles described by Q4 Why did you change your approach from just
United Nations Environment Programme and World tourist accommodation to alternative activities
Tourism Organization (2005). after the outbreak?
He responded: ‘When Corona came, there were a lot
Q3 What was your purpose in engaging in various of restrictions and rules that had to be followed, and
activities along with tourist accommodation eco-lodge had to follow these rules. On the one hand,
before the pandemic? we could not use government aid because its amount
He responded: ‘Before the pandemic, we focused on was low, and the conditions for receiving it were dif-
cultural and educational tourism. His purpose in pro- ficult. Tourists who wanted to go and visit the monu-
moting cultural tourism was to raise public awareness ments were rare, and the number of tourists decreased.
regarding preserving monuments in the village or at Since public awareness had dropped, especially among
least preventing them from being demolished. And children, the decision was made to hold courses in ar-
for this, we held a campaign that started in a neigh- chitecture (tiling, mirror working, and mosaics), elec-
bouring village and spread to other villages. Because tronics, and robotics. Students could attend classes
when a monument is ruined or dirty, tourists do not with their families during the Corona. This new ap-
desire to visit. When tourists visit monuments, it proach was welcomed by many institutions, especially
causes the region to be introduced on social media. music and painting institutions. Artists and students
Regarding educational tourism, we talked to archi- from different universities came and held art work-
tecture professors nationally and internationally, and shops.’ this change in approach made us realise that
some came to visit, even those who were not in archi- educational tourism has good potential, which we
tecture but were interested in monuments. Many stu- were weak in this regard, and we learned and experi-
dents also came here to stay and practice architectural enced a lot. Due to the lack of tourist bookings, he fo-
techniques. The monuments of the surrounding vil- cused on the local community and pursued education-
lages were surveyed by the students, which led to the al tourism as an alternative form of tourism to survive;
registration of these monuments on the Iran National this is consistent with the results of Soliku et al. (2021)
Heritage List. On the other hand, the students were that the promotion of domestic tourism can enhance
unfamiliar with the practical topics of architecture and the resilience of the eco-tourism sector and Wang et al.
were practically unaware of traditional Iranian archi- (2021) and Abbas et al. (2021) that alternative tourism
tecture. Practical classes and acquaintance with tradi- such as special programs for children and adolescents
tional architecture were held here, which attracted stu- can accelerate the post-COVID-19 tourism recovery.
dents. It was an excuse for them to come back again.
According to Georgakopoulou and Delitheou Q5 How do you evaluate the benefits of implementing
(2020), sustainable tourism development can be activities such as holding creative events for
achieved by developing alternative forms of tourism. children, advertising the sale of local handicraft
As Vărzaru et al. (2021) stated, sustainable tourism re- products on social media, and so on?
quires a long-term vision. He had a long-term idea for He responded: “Financially, if I want to check, it had
his business before the pandemic. Therefore, he has the minimum for us to be able to pay the employees,

12 | Proceedings of the 7th UNESCO UNITWIN Conference