| 51. |
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| 52. |
- Abbasian, Saeid, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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How the Iranian Fire Festival in Stockholm is perceived by the visitors?
- 2019
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Ingår i: 28th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research 23rd to 25th October 2019. - Roskilde, Denmark : Roskilde University. ; , s. 45-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Every year, a Tuesday in the middle of March and after 5:00 pm the Iranian Fire Festival (Eldfesten in Swedish, Chaharshanbe Suri in Persian) is celebrated outdoors in the center of Stockholm and ends before 10:00 pm. This event has its roots in ancient Persia, but now it is celebrated by several nations in the Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asia. The Stockholm festival is arranged and financed by The Swedish National Theatre and several times earlier it has been opened by Swedish ministers. The event visitors are mostly of Middle Eastern background coming from Stockholm area. Since 2016 it can also be watched live through Swedish and foreign TV stations and through Social media. During the earlier years the event was held in Kungsträdgården (The Royal Garden) but this year it was arranged in the amusement park of Skansen. Ethnic cultural events in major urban areas create good images for cities and countries but also for immigrants and their neighborhoods in the city of issue (McClinchey, 2008; Loukaitou-Sideris and Soureli, 2012), and a sense of belonging among immigrants (Chacko, 2013). Many stakeholders are involved in such events (Getz et al 2007; Getz And Andersson, 2010) but perhaps the most important stakeholder is the visitors of the event. Therefore, it is of high relevance to study the visitors’ visit motivations, their perceived experience in terms of satisfaction level and their level of loyalty i.e. if they intend to visit the event next year (Savinovic et al, 2012). The aim of this research is to get insights on the visitors of the Fire Festival, their motives behind participation and how they perceive their participation afterwards. The main methods chosen in this research is participant observation and 257 completed surveys online until April 11th, 2019. Preliminary results The respondents are 63% men and 37% women, and they are mostly older than 40 (44% are older than 50). More than half of them have been living in Sweden less than 21 years of which 17% less than 5 years. 83% of the respondents call themselves Swedish-Iranians. More than 80% of the respondents have academic education (of which 7% with PhD education) and most of them are employed either by public or private sector. A considerable number of them are also either self- employed, students or retirees. They have come from different districts of Greater Stockholm while a minor part has come from municipalities outside the county. A pre-dominant majority of them have come there with friends and family members, and most of them have been participating in the festival for third times or more. Also, more than half of them have visited the Skansen park three or more times earlier. The main reasons why they celebrate the festival is to keep the old tradition and culture alive. The celebration creates feelings like happiness, pride, community, belonging, nostalgia, childhood, the Spring. Concerning the question what the place or arena means to you they either like Skansen or prefer other places in Greater Stockholm or do not care about the place but the festival and other issues such as security and safety. To the question “what do you think about celebrating the festival at Skansen” they give positive answers and to the question “are your expectations on the festival fulfilled” the majority are totally or partly agreed. They also believe that this event must be celebrated every year and give many improvement suggestions and additional critical comments such as more food trucks, better and cheaper food, more professional artists and happy songs and music.
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| 53. |
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| 54. |
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| 55. |
- Abbasian, Saeid, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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Overtourism in Dubrovnik in the eyes of local tourism employees : A qualitative study
- 2020
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Ingår i: Cogent Social Sciences. - : Taylor & Francis. - 2331-1886. ; 6:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article implies a qualitative methodological approach and has a focus on the local tourism employees in Dubrovnik and their perception of overtourism. The empirical data are based on 12 days’ field observation in July 2018, and 18 e-mail interviews with local tourism employees. The data analysis method has been thematic analysis. The interviewees show a high level of awareness and concern about the problem. Overcrowding, traffic congestion, various physical damages, displacement of locals in Old Town, low quality of tourist experiences and lower quality of life for locals, increased prices are among problems caused by overtourism in Dubrovnik. Factors related to seasonality, physical geographic conditions, cruise ships are the most problem makers and the interviewees prefer tourists that stay overnight. Their most frequent solution suggestions are reduction of the number of cruise ships followed by stricter rules of the establishment and of quality for accommodations, caterings and shops.
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| 56. |
- Abbasian, Saeid, 1961-
(författare)
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Participants’ perception of training programmes in the tourism industry : A Swedish pilot study
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 2514-9792. ; 1:4, s. 309-324
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to deal mainly with the participants’ perception of their attendance in publicly funded training programmes in the tourism industry.Design/methodology/approachThe investigation is based on e-mail interviews with 12 employees in the Swedish tourism industry who have actively participated in such courses as well as some courses offered by private organisations.FindingsThe results show that the interviewees have a positive perception of their participation and they believe that their attendance has had an overall positive impact on them or on their businesses. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether their participation has had an extraordinarily positive impact on business outcomes in terms of subsequent increased turnover, greater productivity or sales, or an expanded customer base. Lack of time and money and the prevalence of unsuitable courses prevent business owners and their employees from attending such courses.Originality/valueThis research is the first Swedish qualitative investigation on the issue.
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| 57. |
- Abbasian, Saeid, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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Perspectives of Over-tourism in four Pre-Industrial Historical City Centers : A research idea
- 2019
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Ingår i: 28th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research 23rd to 25th October 2019. - Roskilde, Denmark : Roskilde University. ; , s. 46-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over-tourism has become a new subject for research, particularly on urban sustainable tourism, during recent years (Novy, 2018). The term refers to when the number of tourists at a certain time in an extreme way exceeds the number of locals in the destination (Goodwin, 2017). This phenomenon creates a series of problems for the host destinations and puts pressure on them and their attractions, on the local service facilities and the genuine urban culture (Postma and Schmuecker, 2017; Trancoso Gonzalez, 2018; Weber et al, 2017; Montanari & Staniscias, 2010). Earlier research has shown how this phenomenon results in tension/conflict between locals and tourists and creates phobia among host people towards tourists(Postma and Schmuecker,2017; Martins, 2018; Milano et al, 2018). Recent research (Koens et al, 2018) shows that tourism stakeholders in many European cities show great awareness on the issue in their cities. Earlier research has mostly focused on locals while a focus on the visitors has beenlacking. The purpose of the research is to get more empirical insights in over-tourism in four European city centers, Dubrovnik, Visby, Stockholm, and Riga, from both perspectives of locals and visitors/tourists, and thereby get knowledge through the challenges to, and opportunities for, both constituencies that are created in this learning process. This is in consistence with earlier research with same purpose (Costa et al, 2018). The research is justified by the fact that the topic is still new, and there are not too many studies published as of now. The first common characteristic between these four cities is that they all are cruising ports. The two first cities are rather towns than cities, almost of same size and natural preconditions, while the latters are much larger, capital cities in the Baltic Sea region with almost similar preconditions i.e. Over-tourism in the downtown area during peakseason. The overall methodological approach in this project will be qualitative consisting of triangulation (mixed methods) based on comparative case studies. The data collection methods will consist of: field observations during the peak season in July-August in the four cities, face to face interviews and email interviews
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| 58. |
- Abbasian, Saeid, 1961-
(författare)
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Political crises and destination choice : An exploratory study of Swedish-Iranian second-home buyers
- 2018
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Ingår i: Tourism, Culture & Communication. - : Cognizant Communication Corporation. - 1098-304X .- 1943-4146. ; 18:3, s. 205-218
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Political crises, which have a known impact on the choice of tourism destination, can also negatively affect the choice of second-home destination and purchase. The purpose of this study is to investigate why some Swedish-Iranian second-home buyers prefer Spain to Turkey for political reasons. More than 30 short dialogues were conducted with Swedish-Iranian buyers at the exhibition "Buying Properties Abroad" in Kista, September 2015, following the start of a series of political crises in Turkey. A simple question was asked: Why are you choosing Spain rather than Turkey? The most important category of reasons were political factors, followed by cultural reasons. Political anxiety, instability, and insecurity in Turkey, the risk of civil war, a police society, lack of democratic order, the fact that Turkey is not a member of the European Union, the government's negative attitudes towards Kurds, and the emergence of Islamic State were the political reasons most mentioned. One conclusion that can be drawn is that political crises affect second-home tourism/tourists in the same way that they do ordinary tourism/tourists. The research has some important implications for Turkish policymakers, tourism stakeholders at a macrolevel, their competitors, especially in Spain, and potential buyers. Based on this research, some suggestions for future studies are also given.
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| 59. |
- Abbasian, Saeid, 1961-
(författare)
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Psychosocial wellbeing as the outcome of the City festival celebration
- 2021
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Ingår i: 29th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research. ; , s. 178-178
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Multicultural festivals contribute to strengthen multicultural societies through positive psychosocial, social and cultural benefits for individuals, groups and communities/societies (Lee et al., 2012).Especially, these includes positive feelings and emotions that are created with attendees in the festival (Kim et al, 2016).The purpose of this descriptive research is to get an understanding of the Persian Fire Festival’s visitors in Stockholm and their subjective reasoning around the feelings and emotions that are created through their celebration. 280 visitors/attendees answered to the question “What emotions does it evoke to celebrate the Fire Festival with you?” that was included in an online questionnaire. Excepting a few irrelevant answers, the predominant majority gave clear examples of positive feelings and emotions and some of them mentioned up to six feelings. Happy/happiness has been the most expressed feeling. The other frequent feelings have been: welcome the spring and the new year; pride/proud; community; belonging and togetherness; nostalgy; and home feeling. A very few people also mentioned sad feelings such as homesickness and missing family. The results show an overall positive impact of the festival celebration on the visitors’ psychosocial well-being. They also give rise to the question how such festival arrangements through increased positive feeling can contribute to stronger feelings of identity, belonging and community and thereby results in better socio-cultural integration of these people into the society.
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| 60. |
- Abbasian, Saeid, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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Second Home purchase in Turkey by Swedish Iranians : An Explorative Study
- 2017
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Ingår i: 26th Nordic Symposium of Tourism and Hospitality Research October 4-6 2017, Falun, Sweden.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Second home tourism is often discussed in the context of the western world. Other groups and their motivations, in this case people of Iranian background who are a large ethnic group in Sweden, are often neglected, although the group has shown interest in purchase of second home in Turkey.The aim of this study is to get more insight on Swedish Iranians’ purchase of second home in Turkey. 19 e-mail interviews (with Broker companies, owners, and potentially buyers) have been conducted. Also participant observation in Antalya region in June 2015 and at the exhibition of “Buying Properties Abroad” in Kista in September 2015 has been done.The interview results reveal that the Swedish Iranian second home buyers collect information through friends and relatives, various web sites, exhibitions, brokers, and real estate companies before buying apartment. Their motives have been: following other friends/relatives who bought apartments there, cultural proximity including the Turkish language and food, geographic proximity to Iran, relatives living in Iran do not need Turkish visa, economic factors including prices, the climate, and investment for the retirement. They stay in their apartments at least once a year up to 4 times a year and the duration of their stay each time is at least one week. A part of them might choose to live partly or permanently in Turkey after the retirement. Their motives are similar to many other second home owners elsewhere but there are also aspects related to the political context of this mobility.
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