Assessing the Tourism Capabilities of Historical Textures for Urban Regeneration (Case Study: Tabriz city)

Introduction:

 The city is a familiar word that brings movement with itself. This endeavor follows a path that is sometimes growing and sometimes declining. The historical texture includes many spiritual, symbolic, and aesthetic dimensions, which at the same time represent areas that contain evidence of urban civilization because it reflects the identity of the city. Urban regeneration is an interdisciplinary approach and comprehensive and integrated measures to develop and improve economic, physical, social, and environmental sustainability in the conditions of residents. It has long-term and strategic goals to regenerate the city. There are different approaches to creating sustainable regeneration in cities. An approach can create sustainability for the city that can advance modernization in physical dimensions and lead to the sustainable economic, social, and cultural-identity performance of the texture. Regeneration with a tourism development approach can lead to tissue sustainability. Historical textures of cities, which are hidden treasures, sometimes become the lifeblood of cities and a problem for them. Consider integrated. The purpose of this study is to "evaluate the tourism capabilities of historical textures to regenerate in the city of Tabriz," and, to achieve this goal, we seek to answer the question, "What is the status of tourism capabilities in the historical texture of Tabriz to regenerate?"

Materials and Methods:

 The type of research in this article is applied, and its study method is descriptive-analytical. The field of research is the historical texture of Tabriz, and the statistical population is tourists of the historical texture of Tabriz. The questionnaire of tourists in three socio-cultural, physical, and environmental dimensions with 30 items was prepared to evaluate the research. The number of questionnaires for tourists is 384. In order to increase the accuracy, 390 questionnaires were distributed among tourists entering the tourist areas of the historical texture of Tabriz (museums, parks, hotels, etc.). Questionnaires were prepared with a 5-point Likert scale. The results were analyzed by SPSS software using the Chi-square test.

Discussion and Results:

 In examining the independent characteristics of the study population concerning the subject, the distribution of tourists by gender includes 49.74% of men and 50.26% of women. The distribution of tourists by age indicates that young people are the most visitors to the historical texture of Tabriz. The distribution of tourists by job in the three groups of freelance, employee, and student has been a balanced distribution. The highest percentage of tourists in the historical texture were tourists aiming for leisure and recreational travel with 56.41%. The situation of tourism in the historical texture of Tabriz in socio-cultural, physical, and environmental dimensions is as follows: 1) Socio-cultural dimension: More than half of the respondents (90.5%) have chosen 'many' and 'very many' options and the tourism capabilities of the historical texture of Tabriz in order to regenerate the socio-cultural dimension from the perspective of tourists is in good condition; 2) Physical dimension: More than half of the respondents (96.2%) have chosen ‘medium’ to ‘very large’ options and the capabilities of the historical texture of Tabriz for tourism in order to regenerate the physical dimension are relatively favorable for tourists; 3) Environmental dimension: More than half of the respondents (95.1%) have chosen ‘medium’ to ‘very large’ options and the capabilities of the historical texture of Tabriz for tourism in order to regenerate the environmental dimension from their point of view is relatively favorable.

Conclusions:

 The results indicate that the tourism capabilities of the historical texture of Tabriz so as to regenerate the socio-cultural dimension to the desired level, in the environmental and physical dimension to a relatively desirable level. For this purpose, for the development of tourism in order to regenerate the historical texture of Tabriz, physical and environmental strategies and policies should be given priority. If the development of tourism is purposeful, it will cause regeneration in the historical texture of Tabriz. Due to the existence of many historical attractions in the historical texture of Tabriz and the potential to attract tourists, in fact, strengthening and reviving tourism centers can be the driving force of urban regeneration in this area. If the development of tourism is not purposeful, it will destroy the structure of the texture, congestion, and traffic will cause hardship to the residents.