Providing a tourism development model with emphasis on the happy city approach Case example: Yazd city

In 2015, the tourism industry accounted for 9.9% of the gross domestic product (GDP) (WTTC, 2015) and is arguably the largest industry in the world (Wearing and Foley 2017), which has surpassed powerful industries such as oil, food, and automobiles. (UNWTO, 2013). The increasing and accelerating growth of this industry has caused many experts to consider the 21st century as the century of tourism. Also, the benefits of tourism for host communities (Pratt, McCabe, and Movono 2016; Rivera, Croes, and Lee 2016), especially in developing countries, have been proven as an important tool for development because of the employment opportunities, GDP (Travel and Impact 2015) business development, sustainable growth and... have a positive effect (Economics 2014). Therefore, the tourism industry, especially urban tourism, has a special place in the economy of countries (Shoval 2018).

But even though tourism is one of the most important areas of life (McCabe and Johnson 2013; Lee et al. 2018) and the happiness of tourists is one of the main factors of tourism development, these influencing factors have not yet been identified in the destination (Bimonte and Faralla 2016).

Therefore, urban planners try to have a lively and happy city by examining the impact of urban spaces on its residents and visitors. For this reason, today, providing a happy city has become one of the main reasons for urban management systems, especially in developed countries. Therefore, providing lively and attractive environments and spaces along with happy citizens are very important for the sustainability of tourism destinations to meet the needs, primary and secondary expectations of tourists and the resulting financial benefits.

The case study in this research is the city of Yazd, which is located in the middle of the central plateau of Iran and at the crossroads of the main roads of the country. Its historical context has been registered as one of the national works of Iran in 2004. Also, due to its valuable historical architecture and intact traditional texture, it was registered in the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2016. Statistics and comparison information between the golden tourism triangle of Iran (Isfahan, Shiraz and Yazd) in terms of incoming foreign tourists (2013 Shiraz 281, Isfahan 195 and Yazd 60, 1394 Shiraz 288, Isfahan 250 and Yazd 66, 1395 Shiraz 392, Isfahan 351 and Yazd 113) shows that Isfahan and Shiraz with more than 350 thousand incoming foreign tourists in 2015, while having a close competition with each other, have attracted three times as many tourists as Yazd (113 thousand people) (Cultural Heritage Organization, 2016 ). This statistic shows that compared to the other two cities, Yazd still does not have the necessary capacity to attract tourists. One of the reasons may be the level of happiness reported in internal research. For this reason, the current research aims to provide a model for the development of tourism with an emphasis on the happy city in Yazd city and seeks to answer the question: What type of model is the optimal model for the development of tourism with an emphasis on the happy city for the city of Yazd?



Its research method is a survey type in the descriptive-analytical area. In the process of presenting this model and in order to achieve the actual and potential factors in the city of Yazd, first the indicators of the happy city and the development of tourism were identified through interviews as a means of collecting qualitative information (thematic analysis), then by developing a questionnaire, The status of indicators of happy city (400 citizens) and tourism development (400 tourists) were investigated in the study area. Finally, with the connection between the happy city and tourism development, the tourism development model is presented with an emphasis on the happy city approach.



In this part, according to the combination of qualitative (results from in-depth interviews) and quantitative (results from questionnaires), the optimal model of tourism development in Yazd city with the Happy City approach has been discussed. After the factors affecting the development of tourism and the happy city were extracted using theoretical literature and in-depth interviews with experts, two questionnaires were prepared for citizens living in Yazd and for domestic and foreign tourists. Tourism and happy city in the study area were determined through descriptive statistics (percentage and average) and inferential t-test of a sample with a theoretical average of 3). In the next stage, the results of the path analysis show that there is a significant relationship between tourism development and the dimensions of the happy city with the mediating variable of happy residents. Also, the Pearson test results showed that there is a significant relationship between tourism development and happy city. Therefore, for the tourism development of Yazd city with the happy city approach, in addition to strengthening the actual effective factors (strengths), it is necessary to strengthen the potential effective factors in this city (which have been identified through in-depth interviews based on theoretical literature) based on their importance in the program Future plans should be considered.

Reviewing the background of the research has shown that the happy destination as an influential factor in the development of tourism has only been the work of Chen and Lee (2018) which did not mention any of the dimensions of the happy city, only examining the tourists' image of the Swiss destination with indicators such as value The understanding of the destination, tourism services, satisfaction and tourist experience have been discussed, which overlap to some extent with the requirements and tourist attractions of the present research.What makes this study different from the current research, in addition to the difference in the population of residents and tourists (a happy destination from the perspective of residents and tourists), is in the research method that tourism development indicators are extracted only based on theoretical literature and the relationship between them is investigated with a quantitative method.