Struggle on Sense-Making in the Field of Tourism (Case Study: Sanandaj)

Extended Abstract
Tourism is a phenomenon integral to social life. Today, for a tourist the world has become one large department store of countryside and cities and it is a major source of income for many countries, and affects the economy of both the source and host countries, in some cases being of vital importance. Sustainable tourism is demed as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes and life support systems.
 
Introduction
 Mass tourism developed with improvements in technology allowed the transport of large numbers of people in a short period of time to places of leisure and so that greater numbers of people could begin to enjoy the benefits of their free time. In other words, the developments in technology and transport infrastructure has made many types of tourism more affordable. Despite the different interpretations and meanings, tourism is strongly influenced by images and ideas that tourists already have in their minds. In other words, tourists usually have a gaze which transforms the intended space an object of manipulation. This research is about to interpret images, ideas, thoughts and concepts of tourists that direct their ways of encountering with the host society. For gaining this aim, we have used the theoretical approach of John Urry called “tourists gaze”. The concept of gaze highlights that looking is a learned ability and that the pure and innocent eye is a myth. Gazing at particular sights is conditioned by personal experiences and memories and framed by rules and styles as well as by circulating images and texts of this and other places.
 
Materials and Methods
 Concerning methodology, qualitative method, mainly grounded theory, is used. The sample is selected from tourists travelled to Sanandaj during the spring of 1395. For this purpose, we have interviewed with 26 key informants, selecting them through theoretical/purposeful sampling.
 
Discussion and Results
The findings show that images such as “war attitudes”, “religious bias”, and “disorientations” strongly affect the tourist’s gaze and make the subjective image of the tourists. Moreover, phenomena like “ethnic specters”, “historical preconceptions”, “distorted interactions” and “group prejudices” make the way forgenerating social gap between tourists and the host society. So, the tourists travelling to this city usually experience some objective and symbolic realities such as “cold interactions”, “the sense of kindness toward the natives”, “instrumental conformity”, “an unchangeable host society” and “intertwining of ecological space and historical traditions”. Although tourists prefer to oppose the boredom of everyday life and escape from bitter realities by interacting with habitants of travelled places, they usually feel that gaining this purpose is not as easy as they think. Their travelling to this area, according to their own interpretations, conveys consequences like “alteration of views and expectations”, “making interactions easier”, “transformations of attitudes” and “the decline of boundaries”. The main and central category of this research is, therefore, “the tourism as a field of exchanging and struggling over meanings”.
 
Conclusions
In the modern world, the tourists pay for their freedom, the right to disregard native concerns and feelings and the right to spin their own web of meaning. In fact, all the modern world is to be lived pleasurably by a tourist. He is always about to give the world his own meanings through interaction and even through struggling. Today evidence suggests that tourism as a global phenomenon shows no signs of substantially abating in the long term. It has been suggested that travel is necessary in order to maintain relationships, as social life is increasingly networked and conducted at a distance. For many people vacations and travel are increasingly being viewed as a necessity rather than a luxury. We can say that tourism is travel for pleasure and also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours, but there is also anther point which is to be taken into consideration: tourism as field of meaning exchange has become so important.
 
Keywords: War Attitudes, Religious Bias, Cold Interactions, Instrumental Conformity, Decline of Boundaries.
 
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