NOMAD TOURISM PLANNING IN IRAN: A Case study of Shahsevan tribe in Ardabil

NOMAD TOURISM PLANNING IN IRAN: A case Study of Shahsevan Tribe in Ardabil Hassan Bakhshizadeh M. A. Rural Sociology and Executive Management Rural Development, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran. Tehran, Iran. E-mail: jrd@ut.ac.ir The corresponding author: Fax: +98-21-88025917 And Mohsen Hosseinpour M. A. Toefl, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran. Tehran, Iran. E-mail: Hosseinpour.mohsen@gmail.com And Vali Rostamalizadeh, PhD. Student of Rural Sociology, Faculty of Social sciences, University of Tehran. Tehran, Iran. E-mail: v.rostamalizadeh@gmail.com Abstract Cultural aspects of nomadic life have influenced different aspects of Iranian culture, though with the advent of Modernism it has been exposed to some changes. Nonetheless, cultural aspects of nomadism are considered as a traditional life especially in some parts of the country. The suggested strategies and framework for different nomadic parts of the country should be in line with the potential capacities of the region. Considering the soaring interest of tourists to sightseeing in some nomadic desolated areas, both for resting and learning as well as visiting new places, and the actuality of potentialities in the nomadic areas of Ardabil, nomadic tourism can provide a lot of opportunities for development and tourism planning. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the possibilities of nomadic tourism planning in Sardabeh village placed in Sabalan Mountains. The methodology used for this study is interactive planning with a participatory rural appraisal approach. The data of the study were collected via structured and semi-structured interviews and observation. The results of the study showed that expansion of tourism services in nomadic areas has the same advantages and disadvantages of rural tourism and the negative aspects of this part can be reduced with programming and doing some cultural plans. Keywords Interactive Planning, Nomadic Tourism, Rural Development, Rural Tourism, Tourism Planning. 1 1. INTRODUCTION Nomadic life is a type of adjustment with environment in which human utilizes the lands that are not suitable for agriculture. However, nomadism is something beyond the human’s relation and natural environment and the societies’ culture plays an important role in its formation. The nomad’s style of life that is followed with emigration is one of the primary aspects of social life that has been continued though followed with ups and downs. Under the influence of geographical and climactically situation, establishment and utilization of environmental sources among nomadic groups involves different aspects. Therefore, we observe various forms of life, emigration and cultural-social models. Nomads’ style of living, compared with urban and rural societies, is less exposed to cultural, economical and social changes. Nowadays, various elements and cultural framework are common in nomadic societies and these have lost the true nature when confronted with factors like Modernism. Therefore, the evaluation, identification, recording and restoring of the nomad’s culture can provide a good help in perseverance and reviving of theses social and cultural elements. Among these, tourism can be considered as one of the most important criteria that can help us keep and develop these factors between nomads and tourists. The main purpose of this research is nomadic tourism planning. Another purpose of this study is to attract the people’s participation and to use their views in tourism planning. For conducting this research we have used interactive planning with a rural cooperative evaluation approach. The data related to planning were collected through interview and discussion. Nomadic tourism is one of the approaches that can unmarginalize the country and encourage them to live in winter quarters and countryside. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Review Stage Nomadic society is one of the three societies of urban, rural, and nomadic that its development can play an important role in rural and urban development, considering the fact that winter quarters and countryside are placed near villages and some of them are established near cities. Nomadic regions as a cultural heritage have some specifications like local habits, emigration custom, type of domicile, music, local language. Thus a planned programme is needed for keeping and reviving the cultural traditions of nomads from two points of view: creating self-confidence and familiarizing with Iranian culture. Historians have traditionally used the term tribe when discussing these socio-political groups in the 13th-14th centuries and the term clan when discussing these exact same groups in the 15th century (Uli, 1986). Following the work of Barth, a number of new anthropological studies appeared on the Qashquai, the Bakhtiyari, the Shahsevan, the Turkmen, and other tribes in Iran. In the Islamic Republic, however, anthropologists and historians have been active in producing a number of rich studies on the tribes. While there has been a rich store of tribe studies in Iran, the nationalist historiography of Iranian studies in West, over the last two decades, led to the abandoning of tribe groups as subjects of study (Khazeni, 2005). The historical experience of the Middle Eastern societies in general, and Iran in particular, challenges such conceptualizations of tribe and tribalism. While important parts of the Iranian population in the past consisted of tribe people, their social structure and their relations with the various central states have made them different from those tribe categories presented as isolated, primitive, kinship-based groups (Hamidi, 1995). The Iranian context does not support such an interpretation of tribe and tribalism. In contrast, the tribes in Iran have not been formed on the basis of kinship ties – socio – political 2 considerations have instead played on important role in their formation. Economically, they have also encouraged hierarchical and politically centralized forms of social organization. Culturally and politically, tribes in Iran have been fragmented and divided groups with many internal conflicts and rivalries (Hamidi, 1995). From a historical point of view, tribes and nomads have had many political-social effects throughout the world. In Iran nomads have also had many influences on social and political structures. In the past, many of the nomad’s leaders had an impenitent role in political aspects of the society. Therefore, the identification of the nomad’s society is considered essential both from a political and social-economical point of view. The suggested framework and strategies for different nomadic regions should accord with the potentialities of the region. In other words, the environmental capacities like water, soil, jungle, mines and climates play an important role in the type of the suggested strategized for the region (Seydaei, 2006). Nomadic tourism includes visiting the nomad’s emigration, cultural and behavioural aspects, living models, traditional economical activities, artefacts, and attendance in nomad’s residence, and experiencing a nomadic life for a few days artefacts .In practice, nomadic tourism tries to advocate the poor people that were supposed to be devastated a few years ago. Nomadic tourism not only terminate the destruction of nomads but also it nomads tends to advocate the nomads life in its traditional form to be able to use its revenue. For playing a positive role in tourism industry, we need to devote our attention more to management, local cooperation, precise laws, marketing and planning. The nomads who live in Ardabil province are called Ilsun (Shahsevan), and based on the extant documents: a) Some of them are the descendants of the Ghaznavi Turks who lived in this region in the fourth century; b) Some of them emigrated from these regions when the Mogul attacked them; c) Some of them are the descendants of the Turks tribes who immigrated from Asian Minor to Azerbaijan in the fourth century (Hegira). Theses nomads, from an ethnographic point of view, are dependent to the ‘Sarbn’, ‘Ghomish’, ‘Ghezelbash’ and ‘Tavalish’ tribes and in the Safaviyehe era they made a nomad party by Shah Abbas called ‘Shahsevan’ . Base on the census conducted in 2007, the nomad’s population in Ardabil province includes 8750 family (Nomad’s organization of Ardabil, 2005). Ilsun nomad is the third most populated nomad tribe with 44 tribes settled in Dashte Moghan, Meshkinshahr and Ardabil. The independent nomad and tribes of the province includes: Ilsun (Shasavan) tribe, Gharh Dagh (Arasbaran) tribe, Shaterloo tribe, and Fooladloo tribe (Nomad’s organization of Ardabil, 2005). In Sardabed village and around the Vakilabad rural we can see Jahankhanomloo, Gojabayli, Mastalibayli, Ajirlr, and Tahlah tribes. Vakilabad village is one of the tourism places in the Ardabil province that attract thousands of tourists every year and it is located in the Sabalan Mountains. Planning and tourism is more feasible with the nomad’s cooperation and it can lead to more self-steam, creativity, strength of ties among them, decision making and it can also increase the level of social knowledge of the nomads. These strategies can bring about more social cooperation of the nomads and it can lead to taking the responsibility and decision making and they are able to participate on developmental projects. The results of this research can provide a big help for the expansion of tourism industry in Sardabeh village and it can help us in keeping the cultural heritage and the environment of the region and it can also leads to sustainable development and potentialize the nomads capacities. 3 2.2. Approach planning The negative experience of many unplanned tourist destinations and the success of most of local and regional planned locations demonstrate that tourism development should be based on a planning process that includes a solid assessment of the resources at destination and their attractiveness potential. The concept of tourism planning is directly related to tourism development. Planning is subject to a myriad of interpretations. Tourism planning can be viewed either as a process or as an activity. Planning activities have expanded dramatically during the last few decades and have been developed and implemented by politicians, social scientists, and community representatives. Currently, the stages of implementation and development are significantly more complex than in the past. The new planning activities emphasize a cooperative approach, which results in better reasoned strategies. In the tourism domain three major entities direct the planning business: governmental agencies, supra-governmental agencies (World Tourism Organization), and professional planners (Formica, 2000). The planning approach used in this study is an interactive one. Many of the researchers believe that in tourism industry interactive approach has some priorities over other approaches (Kazemi, 2006). Interactive planning process can be divided into five stages: 1) ordering the disorders; opportunity and threatening system; purpose planning; 2) emphasizing the aims that should be accomplished; instruments planning; 3) choosing or creating the tools needed for achieving the goals; sources planning; 4) determining the necessary sources; 5) implementing and controlling the plan; determining the type, time and place of activity and the how of implementation and its consequences, i.e., its keeping in the right place (Russell Lincoln, 2005). 3. METHODOLOGY The method of this research is qualitative in which for doing nomadic tourism interactive planning we recourse to participatory rural appraisal (PRA). Interactive trend in planning is based on the cooperation foundation and cooperation foundation in planning emphasizes that no one can plan for other people. Thus, it is better that everyone himself participate in planning (Rahnamud, 2006). Shahsevan nomads deeply respect their guests and the travellers. The researchers in this study, after asking for permission from nomads, conducted interviews and planning interactively. Interview is the most often method in qualitative researches. We tried to, by asking the subjects, delve into the issue deeply. Interactive planning process can be divided into five stages: 1) ordering the disorders: opportunity and threatening system; 2) purpose planning: emphasizing the aims that should be accomplished; 3) instruments planning: choosing or creating the tools needed for achieving the goals; 4) sources planning: determining the necessary sources; 5) implementing and controlling the plan: determining the type, time and place of activity and the howness of implementation and its consequences, i.e., its keeping in the right place (Russell Lincoln, 2005). 4. RESEARCH RESULTS For discovering and understanding the truth, there should be a cooperative relation between researcher and nomads’ societies. Moreover, for the involvement of the groups under study, it is necessary that research topic change from a predetermined and abstract concept to a field study researches. Interactive approaches provide a situation for a situation for the researcher s that can help them in dividing the aims for doing the researcher with nomadic societies interactively. 4 One of the main factors in creating and continuing cooperation among nomads is sharing in the advantages and decisions in planning process. Considering the planning process of the study, 12 female and 18 male, after being informed throughout the village, were randomly chosen for the study and they participated in structured interview. The process of Interactive planning with a cooperative approach is conducted in the following way: first, the researchers participated in the study as an insider and observed their life style and they even cooperated with the nomads in doing some jobs. Then after conducting the interviews and deep discussions, the researchers started the planning. It is important to note that nomadic tourism development and planning about Shahsavan nomads settled in Sardabeh village is strongly related to rural tourism development in the Vakilabad and Sardabeh village. First stage) Ordering the disorders; opportunity and threatening system: Investigating the positive and negative points regarding the Sardabeh case is as follows: - Geographical factors: Positive points are including exceptional situation of Sardabeh among the three tourism regions of Sareyn, Meshkinshahr, and Ardabil, natural wonders, extraordinary whether, mineral water, singular caves and divers plants and shrubs. Negative points are including extremely cold weather in some months, lack of garden, long distance and absence of some supporting services. Opportunities are include adjacency to Sareyn and Ardabil as two tourism center, Sabalan mountain chain, production of the new tourism products via combination of natural and cultural sources with beautiful landscapes. Threats are including competition between two important tourism center in two side of the village (Sareyn and Meshkinshahr), exploitation of the village mines. - Economical and marketing factors: Positive points are including capacity of attracting different tourists and delivering the products to tourism market; decent situation of the nomads from general characteristics like young population, high literacy, natural honey production, adjacency to important tourist centers of Sareyn and Ardabil. Negative points are including problems of banking system in giving facilities to tourism center, lack of advertisement, the low qualities of facilities and tourism services, and the weakness of nongovernmental sections in giving services, instability of tourism model in different seasons. Opportunities are including located between tourism marketing of Ardabil, Meshkinshahr and Sareyn and the possibility of using their facilities, the existence of enough experience among the villages about tourism and marketing, understanding the importance of marketing activities by different parts involved in tourism within the villages and nomads, the possibility of dedicating the budget of governmental organizations to advertising the nomads tourism stuffs. Threats are including lack of budget to tourism industry in the region, natural phenomenon like earthquake, and drought, economical and marketing factors threats. 5 - Cultural and social factors: Positive points are including decent level of literacy, high potentialities of nomadic life in village, existence of human sources in private parts for activity in tourism parts, the existence of influential groups and persons, hospitableness attitude of the people and the appropriate cultural situation for tourism attraction, old traditions and specific customs. Negative points are including lack of information and statistics about the tourism sources, media’s lack of attention to this part, securities problems and the absence of police station. Opportunities are including cultural and social; interaction among the villages and the cities, improvement of the people’s knowledge, doing educational courses especially those that are related to tourism, Preparation and conducting informative strategies. Threats are including expansion of emigration to cities, unstable developmental approaches related to tourism, Lack of balance in having access to social services, lack of agreement in solving the problems. - Bio-environmental factors: Positive points are including existence of mountain ecosystem, beautiful sceneries with a variety of flora and fauna, singular and various hills. Negative points are including extreme grazing, conversion of natural and agricultural sources, unstable exploitation of the mines near the nomad’s domicile. Opportunities are including high quality of the pastures, decent roads within the province for having access to tourism regions. Threats are including destruction of the pastures by the chattels, lack of suitable approaches in exploiting natural sources. - Structural and transportation factors: Positive points are including transportation facilities, adjacencies of factories like Artavil tyre. Negative points are including lack of access to sanitary services and poor hygienic facilities, lack of decent water and hygienic burial of the trash, lack of transportation services, and lack of accommodation facilities. Opportunities are including being located in the tourism road, rapid accessibility to center of the province from a road, preparation of a comprehensive tourism plans in a way that is in accordance to the regions strategies. Threats are including mountain climate and snowfall that can block the roads for six month. Second stage) Purpose planning; emphasizing the aims that should be accomplished: Ideal plan: nomadic tourism development in Iran that has been developed interactively Long-term plans: identification and introducing the singular capacities of the nomadic tourism; recognition of the problems related to the nomadic tourism; giving useful and planned solution with the cooperation of the people for solving the problems related to the tourism and nomadic development Short-term plans: providing job opportunities; lengthening the tourism season and encouraging long accommodation; expansion of tourism foundations and preparation of tourism facilities; female cooperation; improvement of the nomadic culture; provision of some facilities in natural environments and the lifts and giving some plans for mountain climbing in Sabalan mountain range. Third stage) Instruments planning; choosing or creating the tools needed for achieving the goals: Preparation of part-time jobs through retail and selling the local foods and products; the necessity of education and training, preparation of cultural facilities for increasing the cultural level of the society, keeping the cultural heritage of the nomads and providing athletic facilities; preparation of suitable facilities for tourism, introducing the tourism potentialities, and tours; giving the responsibility for observation and controlling tourism activities to group of informed female; encouraging the private sections for investment; 6 establishing some sections for keeping the nomads’ culture with the cooperation of some organizations; establishing some tourism attractions and facilities like telecabin. Fourth stage) Sources planning; determining the necessary sources: Region enjoys a rich natural heritage; historical and valuable cultural heritage; sufficient facilities for tourism industry; Structural and transportation; and potential financial and economical sources. Fifth stage) Implementing and controlling the plan; determining the type, time and place of activity: The most responsibility in relation to nomad tourism is on the shoulder of the people themselves so that the villagers with the cooperation of other people can obtain their ideal in reaching a stable development (Bakhshizadeh, 2008). In relation to keeping this planning in its true path, it is necessary that a group of people made of the nomads do the needed affairs and control the tourist development. The following factors are important in investment: a) preparing a detailed and precise plan for nomadic tourism b) executing the projects related to preparation of job opportunity c) executing the projects related to the expansion of the tourism foundations like water supply, electricity, and communication. 5. CONCLUSION For the formation of a stable rural development and tourism in Vakilabad village the existence of some organizations, sources and local control is essential. Although most of the participants reacted positively to tourism development, some of them were disappointed about the government advocacy from tourism. Lack some personnel are that have the ability of leading and cooperation with other people is tangible. People are ready for tourism development programme, if they are able to utilize all of its advantages. The leaders of nomad believe that doing some cultural activities and informing the people about the nomad’s custom and culture is the first and foremost step. Lack of concern in tourism planning insufficiency of an organization for leading is one of the tourism development problems in this region. Considering the research purpose it is emphasized that the nomads themselves have some plans about the cooperation in tourism industry and this need to be considered when the government and other organizations are preparing a general policy and plan for these regions. There are very few plans that welcome the cooperation of the villagers and nomads, especially when the poor rural and nomad population are involved for such programmes. For reducing the control of the privileged few, we need to advertise the cooperation of lay people. Now, this idea is being propagated, however, most of the lay people have a very minor role in tourism development. Tourism industry in Sardabeh is accompanied by some problem this has continued because of lack of financial supports. Considering the fact that there is variety of opinions among the nomads, it is very difficult for them to come to an agreement. Nonetheless, society has a lot of potentialities and people are capable for the expansion of tourism industry. This seems to be a new project and the existence of some problems like lack of investment and good management is conceivable. Overall, considering the rural and nomadic tourism in Sardabeh village we can state that: a) Tourism has not been a successful project, i.e. local organizations have not been an instrument for tourism development; tourism development has not been a successful project because of the lack of investment. There is no continuous local control on tourism. b) Tourism development is sliding into the depths of a recession because of the absence of 7 government advocacy. c) Tourism has developed without any plan. d) The aboriginal inhabitants do not advocate tourism because of its so-called negative aspects. Overall, tourism can play an important role on the region’s economy and the social organizations can be an instrument the process of tourism development. Prospective researchers can do researches on marketing and investment in nomad tourism. This will lead to results that can help us to understand how we can develop the region and use its potentialities more. There are a lot of potentialities in nomad tourism that can be investigated more. This area is very broad and needs to be investigated more. 8 References Bakhshizadeh, Hassan (2008) Planning Rural Tourism in Province Ardabil, Submitted partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of M.A Rural Sociology, University of Tehran, P.50. Formica, Sandro. 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