The role of emotional intelligence of service providers in the travel process: With emphasis on sustainable tourism and human spiritual needs (Case study: Tour service providers in Iran)

The present study tries to analyze the role of emotional intelligence of service providers in the trip process (before, during and after) with a different view of sustainable tourism (from the perspective of tourist satisfaction) and emphasis on the human spiritual needs, to pave the way for further access tourist satisfaction and implementation of sustainable tourism. This is an applied exploratory research and has been done by content analysis and system thinking (in order to draw a conceptual model qualitatively and validation by experts). Data was collected through in-depth interviews with experts of sustainable tourism and spirituality. Experts were recruited through purposeful snowball sampling until data saturation and theoretical saturation. based on the findings, service providers' emotional intelligence plays an important role in improving the travel process by (a) helping the tourist in choosing the right travel package (before the trip), (b) creating a sense of calm, cheerfulness and happiness in the tourist through responding to his spiritual needs (during the trip) and (c) impact positive in the mental evaluations and future decisions of tourist (after the trip). Based on systemic thinking, the results showed that paying attention to the tourists' spiritual needs through the employees' emotional intelligence is effective in achieving more sustainable tourism, so according to research findings and the widespread role of emotional intelligence in the travel process, training of service providers in the use of emotional intelligence is recommended to activists and planners in this industry.