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        1 - Investigating the Factors Involved in Tourism Intercultural Communication among Tourists: A Case Study of Hamadan City, Iran
        Golnoush jabbari Nader Jafari haftkhani
        In today’s modern world, tourism has turned into an effective way to access the environment and culture through intercultural communication. However, despite its significance in long-term economic development, intercultural communication is neglected in the planning sta More
        In today’s modern world, tourism has turned into an effective way to access the environment and culture through intercultural communication. However, despite its significance in long-term economic development, intercultural communication is neglected in the planning stages of tourism development projects. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the factors that influence intercultural communication in tourism using a grounded theory approach. To this end, the required data were collected through detailed semi-structured interviews with fifteen experts and professionals in the tourism industry of Hamedan City who were selected via snowball sampling. The collected data were then analyzed, and the results were organized under six main categories with twenty-six sub-categories. Finally, the theoretical model of the study was developed using the Atlas-Ti software. Accordingly, the main six categories of the model included personal characteristics, socio-cultural characteristics, education, producing materials and creating knowledge on intercultural issues in tourism, management and planning, the health and safety of the environment, and media and information technology in intercultural tourism communication. The results of this study propose an integrated approach for tourism managers and entrepreneurs so that they can develop a high level of intercultural communication and competence for tourists. Manuscript profile
      • Open Access Article

        2 - Smartization of Iran's Tourism Industry: An emphasis on Social and Cultural Empowerment
        Farnoush Zangouei Zahra Kharazi Mohammadvandi Azar Jamshid Salehi Sadaghiyani
        The main purpose of this article was to investigate the role of social and cultural empowerment in institutionalizing smart programs of Iran's tourism industry and identify the components of smart tourism in Iran's urban destinations. As a mixed-method research, this st More
        The main purpose of this article was to investigate the role of social and cultural empowerment in institutionalizing smart programs of Iran's tourism industry and identify the components of smart tourism in Iran's urban destinations. As a mixed-method research, this study used contractual qualitative content analysis within its qualitative phase and a survey in its quantitative phase. As for the qualitative phase, 13 Iranian tourism managers were selected and interviewed through targeted and snowball sampling. Moreover, to conduct the quantitative phase, 390 travel agency experts were selected via convenience sampling, using Cochran's formula. The results of analyzing the data via structural equation modeling with the partial least squares approach showed that all observable and hidden variables were significant at the level of 0/05, all of which were confirmed. Furthermore, socio-cultural empowerment, smart governance, development of new smart technologies applications, and comprehensive smart tourism services were identified as components of the smart tourism industry in Iran. In addition, based on the Stone-Geisser index, the redundancy index of the social and cultural empowerment component was calculated to be 0/523 and based on its value in the final model (0/528), the strong predictive power of the model was confirmed. Manuscript profile