Effect of Historical Buildings Representation in Cyberspace in Creating Tourists’ Destination Image (Qualitative Study of Traditional Accommodations in Kashan)

Understanding the representation components of the historical buildings in cyberspace and their impact on the mental image of the tourists is a significant fact in tourism recognition and management. A part of this subject is the impact of place representation on the destination image of the tourist. In this research, the destination is traditional accommodations that attract tourists' attention. The current research aims to study the effect of historical buildings' representation in cyberspace on tourists' destination image. This research is one of the first studies in architectural tourism that has made traditional accommodations the subject and destination of tourists.

The content analysis method was applied in this qualitative research. Qualitative research approaches are commonly used when there is little current understanding of a complex phenomenon. Content analysis is one of the many methods used in qualitative research. The main advantages of content analysis are that it is content-sensitive, can be applied in highly flexible research designs, and is used to analyze many types of qualitative data. The participants were 18 domestic tourists and seven foreign tourists who found one of Kashan's traditional accommodations in cyberspace for the first time and selected that as their settlement. Data collection was done via semi-structured interviews and continued until reaching saturation.

Four main categories were obtained from data analysis: 1) architectural representation, 2) representation of the semantic attributes, 3) representation of the activities and events, 4) representation method. The results of this study disclosed that place-based representation and highlighting the representation of physical components define different dimensions of human-environment interaction at semantic levels. Place-based representation plays a vital role in how the monument is presented and the audience understands it. The study has revealed that the representation of the physical features of the environment effectively creates a sense of place and the formation of the desired destination image. The concept of place-based representation pays attention to the effects of buildings, humans, and time on each other. It stresses that the human narrative is not far from the architectural narrative.

T The results of this study can contribute to the experts and tourism managers in improving the content production and marketing of the settlements in cyberspace and architects in the representation of the historical buildings to understand better the tourists' mental image from the traditional accommodations via cyberspace. Therefore, the improvement of architectural tourism knowledge will be provided. Paying attention to the dimensions of the concept of place-based representation as one of the most significant concepts and practical issues in promoting environmental perception and environmental psychology will be effective and can be used to understand the environment in cyberspace better. The meanings and concepts that the person decodes after perceiving the place in cyberspace due to the place-oriented representation are among the factors that create levels of sense of place.