Post-war tourism as an urban reconstruction strategy case study: Khorramshahr

Abstract

Purpose Tourism development has been perceived as a promoter of city restoration and can also affect the post-war city reconstruction. Questions on how to reconstruct ruined buildings and urban areas through a post-war tourism-oriented approach based on the expectations of residents and tourists profound answers. The purpose of this paper is to adopt the sequential mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) with purposive sampling which is a non-probability method to investigate tourism-oriented approaches in the reconstruction of buildings and landmarks as the core components of urban tourism. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted the sequential mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) to investigate tourism-oriented approaches in the reconstruction of buildings and landmarks as the core components of urban tourism. Findings The findings of the study point that the preferred strategy for the reconstruction of damaged symbolic building is the preservation of the war effects in regard maintaining the buildings’ history to be considered by urban policy makers, urban designers, and authorities. Research limitations/implications The constraint was associated with the time-consuming nature of this type of research. Original documents of the research context and all the interview data were in the Persian language, making the translating process a time-consuming matter. Furthermore, data collection in the area located near the Iran-Iraq border (500 meters) presented a number of security caveats as limitations. Originality/value The research found a majority of tourists and the residents preferred tourism zone where the combination of post-war and natural attraction across riverside area. In other word, most considerable post-war attractions are those that combined with the appeal of the other tourism potentials like eco-leisure tourism. The preferred strategy for the reconstruction of damaged building reconstruction as post-war tourism attractions is the preservation of the war effects in regard maintaining the buildings history rather than reconstruction as the most likely to pre-war conditions with less attention paid to the war effects.

“Playing tourist” in a divided city

“…The research approach advanced here brings attention to the design of tourism experiences and offerings and centralizes the question of “who do tourism attractions or experiences aim to serve?” In this research, participants often expressed distaste for the war-damaged buildings that remained in their city, while acknowledging that tourists often found these sites most interesting, as has also been found in other post-war tourism research (Mirisaee & Ahmad, 2018). Research assessing perceptions of urban landscapes in a non-post-war setting suggests that residents may value heritage conservation aspects more than visitors, who more greatly value esthetic qualities (de Freitas, Sousa, Ramazanova, & Albuquerque, 2022).…”

“…In places that are post-conflict and recovering from genocide, domestic tourism has been encouraged toward enhancing the positive political, social and economic impacts of tourism development, potentially contributing to unity and reconciliation between people (Mazimhaka, 2007). However, post-conflict destination cities may be susceptible to tourist voyeurism (Mahrouse, 2016) and visitors may find features such as ruined buildings intriguing, whereas residents may associate these places with painful memories (Mirisaee & Ahmad, 2018).…”