Investigating The Effects of Physical Components of Site-Museum on Sustainable Eco-Tourism Development (Case Study: Takht-e-Jamshid Site-Museum)
Subject Areas : Sustainable urban development
Bahareh Rajaei
1
,
Elahe Ahmadi
2
1 - Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran.
2 - Ph.D. Student, Department of Architecture, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran.
Keywords: site-museum, ecotourism, sustainable development, Takht-e-Jamshid,
Abstract :
Today, tourism is one of the basic elements of sustainable development that has different types, including sustainable ecotourism. This type of tourism causes national income and at the same time preserves resources and causes its revival and expansion. One of the factors that can influence the cultural and historical tourism industry and through the attraction of tourists, cause economic prosperity and increase social well-being is the museum, which is built with different goals. Open-space museums or site-museums can establish a dynamic relationship between the site, its valuable objects, visitors, culture and nature (ecology) of the region and also pursue educational and research goals. The problem is that in Iran, museums are not considered due to the lack of attractiveness in terms of functionality and architecture, while this type of building can be very effective in terms of sustainability. The goal of the present study was to investigate the Takht-e-Jamshid site-museums, understand the weak and strong points of its environmental components and the effects of these components on sustainable ecotourism development. This study collected data through library and field methods and using note taking and questionnaires. Since Takht-e-Jamshid is a site-museum and is located in in Fars province, the statistical population of this study consisted of the visitors of this site; meanwhile the sample volume was estimated based on this statistical population. In the end, the number of 305 questionnaires were obtained from field surveys and data were analyzed by SPSS software and exploratory factor analysis, Friedman and T tests. Field survey results indicated that the five factors of architectural building, memory-making and satisfaction, exterior setting, attention to the context (protecting local heritage and attention to the context) and interior setting at the site-museum constituted physical factors affecting sustainable eco-tourism.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Museums are symbols of the past civilization, civility and the current culture of each country, which help promote the cultural level of each society (Asadi, 2013). One of the main tasks of a museum is to establish some cultural communication between the visitor and the object displayed (Rezaei, M. 2016:20). Today, there are various types of museums with different goals; some museums are open spaces or site-museums. When an archeological excavation discovers some immovably valuable artifacts, which cannot be transported to museums, necessary conditions can be used to make the site intended for public view (Rezaei, M. 2016:22). A site museum is a particular type of museum that preserves and interprets the remains of cultural history or natural history phenomena on a site where these have been preserved in situ or reconstructed)Zhang,Light, 2023.(In this connection, museums can influence the tourism, cultural and historical industry and reduce poverty and unemployment and increase social welfare through tourist attraction, thereby leading to economic prosperity. Iran enjoys potential capacities in environmental, historical and cultural heritage areas, which can help attract more tourists (Dolat-Abadi & Yaghubzadeh, 2010:43). One of the types of tourism, which is closely related to sustainability, is ecotourism. While some cities are capable of providing nature-based tourism experiences, only a small number of which enjoy enough natural regions to provide real ecotourism experiences. In this connection, Shiraz City has taken considerable measures due to the green treasure it has.
The problem ahead is that museums in Iran have yet to find their worthy positions and for this, they are not protected well and are also receiving damages. A part of this problem appears to be due to failure to build a correct culture in this area. The major problem, however, lies with the non-attractivity of the present-time museums from functional and architectural aspects. In fact, current museums cannot establish a two-way and dynamic relationship between the visitor, the fabric, and the objects, with training and research goals abandoned in this regard. The goal of the present study was to investigate the Takht-e-Jamshid site-museums, understand the weak and strong points of its environmental components and the effects of these components on sustainable ecotourism development. Accordingly, questions in this study are as follows: Which factors affect sustainable ecotourism? / How can site-museum’s physical components affect sustainable ecotourism?
Methodology
This article fell under descriptive-analytical categories and was performed in the form of a case study. To collect data, the study used library and field methods, while the tools to collect data were field observation, interview with visitors and questionnaires. As for the questionnaire, standard scales with high reliability were used. It is worth mentioning that a pretest had to be administered to determine the questionnaire validity, following localizing the scales, with 20 questionnaires filled in by visitors and the reliability measured by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Meanwhile, some changes were made to the items and then the questioners were widely applied. Based on the number of Takht-e-Jamshid site-museum visitors and using Cochran formula at the error level of 5%, the number of questionnaires was found to be 384, which was reduced to 305 after field surveys and limitations. Data were analyzed by description and explanation methods. In the data description section, measures of central tendency and dispersion metrics were used, while in the data explanation section, correlation analyses were used to measure the relationship between the physical components of the site-museum and sustainable ecotourism. In the end, inferential statistics and parametric tests were used to generalize data. In general, Cronbach’s alpha, descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, t-statistical tests, mean comparison, correlation, agreement coefficient and Friedman ranking tests were used.
Results and discussion
The present study aimed to explore sustainable ecotourism components and the physical factors affecting them in a site-museum using the case study of Takht-e-Jamshid site-museum. Using statistical tests in a survey of visitors’ views of the Takht-e-Jamshid site-museum indicated that there was a positive and significant relationship between satisfaction with the complex and the rising number of visitors, who made memories in the site. In most cases, the visitors had a greater tendency to revisit and invite others to visit the complex. Consistent with the surveys, this satisfaction was positively and significantly related to architectural design components. The architectural building, interior and exterior setting were the three general factors extracted from the views of subjects. Results indicated that heritage protection and attention to the context (ecology) were the most important priorities of people. With respect to the architectural building, attention to site and protecting the existing historical status; with respect to interior setting, the display of artefacts inside the museum and with respect to the exterior setting, the concordance with the ancient styles and inspiration from the site’s identity and historical location were deemed for the memory-making and promotion of users; satisfaction levels. The following table briefly shows the factors affecting the Site-Museum sustainable ecotourism.
Conclusion
In general, the result of the research confirms that overall five factors of attention to the context and the protection of local heritage, architectural building, exterior setting, interior setting, memory-making and satisfaction affect sustainable ecotourism. Consistent with t average tests, all of these components were at a level higher than the average and affected ecotourism.
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