نشریه برنامه ریزی و توسعه گردشگری
پیاپی 28 (بهار 1398)

The aim of this paper is to offer a philosophical analysis of ecotourism destruction. By an emphasis on Heidegger’s thought, the approach of this study is phenomenological. The study’s style is phenomenological description. In a general sense according to the findings, the destructive effects of ecotourism depend on the attitude of tourists. And the view of tourist regarding nature is associated with his mode of being, respectively. Nowadays, for the predominance of mercantilist view over ecotourism industry, the proper outlook has been ruined and as it’s result, the deep relationship between man and nature has been encountered with crisis.  The phenomenological analysis of Heidegger provides a possibility for understanding such an incident, but nevertheless, Heidegger unleashes a solution in order to resolve this crisis. In Heidegger’s view, developing an art-oriented attitude regarding nature could be a suitable alternative for such an exploitative attitude.
  The crisis of environment in these days, is an issue which has catch the attentions of scientists, experts. In the last decades, from different points of view, this issue has been dealt with. It is some days that philosophers have become interested in offering philosophical accounts of this environmental crisis. But developing such philosophical studies have rarely conducted to fields like ecotourism and its destructive effect on nature or environment. Philosopher is concerned with the relation between man and nature. In our era, it seems that this relation has been devastatingly ruined. One of those philosophers who can assist us to perceive this event is Martin Heidegger. Consequently, this article has written based on Heidegger’s thought and its aim is to offer an analysis of tourist’s relation with nature and environment. In order to approach this goal, three questions are prepared to be responded: 1 – what is the dominant attitude which has led to the environmental destruction 2- on this ground, how is this possible to elaborate the destructive effects of ecotourism? 3-  How Heidegger’s art-orientated approach is able to offer a solution to avoid such destructive results of ecotourism on environment? As mentioned, this study tries to offer a philosophical account of destructive effects of ecotourism on environment. The statistical society is the first and second hand sources which were available to researchers and in proportion of the paper’s aim a phenomenological method applied. In philosophical studies, descriptive methods are beneficial to explain theories and their concepts. Heideggerian way of phenomenology is an endeavoring in order to uncover being- world, man and nature. Nevertheless, for Heidegger phenomenology is not the sole study of consciousness of objects or events, but it is an outlook toward objective existence by which phenomenon is permitted to be revealed. On this ground, the aim of the study is to show the Heidegger’s philosophical encounter with nature and other related issues.
Discussion and In the latest decade, environmental crisis and a concern to resolve it has transformed into a global problem. It is tried in this article, to take a look at this issue from a Philosophical perspective.  Among different philosophers, Martin Heidegger is one who made possible such an analysis. He assumed the root of this hostility toward nature lies in the priority of instrumental thought of modern man. He believed the roots of this event must be traced through humanism. The modern man took himself as the center of cosmos and then was allowed to overcome it. The insatiable desire which provoked in modern man to dominate on nature, led to a new interpretation of the world, man and his relations with world. This problem to the extent which is related to nature has reduced it to source of energy which is possible to be saved and is consumed to the future needs. On this ground, one can also analyze the effects of ecotourism on nature and environment. Tourist encountering as an authentic creature with nature is not the same with a tourist as a person who live in everyday life. As Heidegger has remarked, this man is unable to perceive nature as a presence. However, relinquishing such an instrumental view regarding nature is not impossible. It can be done by replacing an art-oriented attitude. According to Heidegger, art is the realm of rising of existence and unfolding of truth, a realm which makes it possible to perceive the nature as it is. Environmental destruction is one consequences of tourists’ altering of attitude in respect of environment. Instrumental view regarding environment which finds its strength from an utilitarianistic attitude causes tourists’ alienation towards his own environment. It seems that contemporary man is no longer able to open a dialogue with nature. He is separated and disappointingly far from the nature, in the sense that this statement might be extended to tourists’ mode of encountering with environment. Preserving and taking care of environment requires a new outlook. Heidegger’s analysis of human condition and his relation to nature reveals the roots of this crisis as well as it discloses the way of its resolving. According to Heidegger, art is a field in which the essence of nature unfolds itself as it is. Hence, the path of escape is but resorting to an art-oriented outlook. Nevertheless, paying a heed to educational institutions in order to disseminate and provide an art-oriented attitude seems necessary. The role of these institutions lies in their deepening a proper attitude regarding environment. Promulgating an art-oriented attitude calls for a special attention to education. Eternal association between school and environment and outlining such a preoccupation in schools in one hand and in other hand avoiding from any emphasizing on utilitarianistic view of nature, as a whole help us to construct a distinctive attitude.

The article examines the impact of tourism policy on the cultural diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Central Asia from 1990 to 2017 and explains the factors influencing tourism policy in the framework of Iranian cultural diplomacy. The research seeks to explore the question of how much tourism policy has strengthened and promoted the cultural diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Central Asia. A mixed qualitative and quantitative research method has been used to investigate on this issue, through the extraction of materials from original documents and the consultation of library resources explaining the impact of tourism policy on cultural diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Central Asia as well as interviews with experts and the use of questionnaires and statistical analysis. A questionnaire composed of 19 questions has been used to survey on this issue. The opinions of 80 respondents from different groups of Iranian society who have responded to the questionnaire have been gathered and analysed. Out of these 80 people, 45 were men, 34 were women and one did not answer the question of gender. In terms of age, 13 were under 30, 44 were between 30 and 35, 17 were between 35 and 40, 4 were between 40 and 45, one was over 45, and one didn’t respond. The frequency distribution of the variable of education among the respondents also demonstrates that there were 6 undergraduate students, 22 graduate students and 52 postgraduate students. 10 people did not give any response about their level of education. In order to investigate on the normal distribution of data, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (KS Test) as well as T Test have been used to examine the hypothesis of the research. Research data demonstrates that most of the respondents have selected relatively the options of modest and very low impact of tourism policies on cultural diplomacy of the IR of Iran in Central Asia, expressing « very low » impact for the questions 9, 12, 13 and 19, and« relatively low » impact for the questions of 1, 6 and 8.  Most of the respondents have stated that the tourism policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has built very low positive image of Iranian society in the Central Asian region. Most of the respondents have assessed as very low the success degree of tourism policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Central Asia. Respondents have stated that the interaction between the tourism policy and cultural diplomacy has been weak and  that tourism policy has relatively not been able to take benefit of the capacity of cultural heritage and artistic music to attract the touristes of Central Asia to Iran.  In addition, respondents have stated the partial rate of success regarding the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran's tourism policy in facilitating the travel of the tourists from Central Asia to Iran, in familiarisation of tourists with the scientific and literary personalities of Iran, as well as with the natural and historical attractions of Iran, in enhancing mutual understanding and the respect to each other’s culture in interaction with the touristes of Central Asia, in creating a sense of common identity, in promoting cultural convergence between Iran and Central Asian countries, in introducing Iranian national traditions to the Central Asian tourists, in strengthening the impact of Iranian tourism structures on the capability and efficiency of Iranian cultural diplomacy in Cultural Asia.  Also, respondents have stated that the Islamic Republic of Iran's tourism policy in Central Asia has  partially been capable to preserve the Iranian intangible cultural heritage with regard to the prevention of confiscation of Iranian academic, literary, and historical personalities by Central Asian countries. The Research data analysis reveals that Iran's tourism policy has slightly strengthened the Iranian cultural diplomacy in Central Asia, so that the inhabitants of the Central Asian countries, despite their civilizational and cultural communalities with the Islamic Republic of Iran have low desire and interest to travel to Iran.  the weakness of interaction between the structure of policy making in tourism industry and the agents of cultural diplomacy, the relatively low capability to take benefit of the capacity of Iranian artistic music, cultural traditions, literature, as well as academic and cultural personalities in tourism industry, the lack of potentiality to build a positive image of Iranian society because of negative propaganda by western media against Iran, the weakness of tourism infrastructures, the political insinuations to intensify the cleavage of Shiite and Sunni schools of thought in Islam, the cultural and linguistic influence of some powers such as Russia and Turkey, and the dominance of political issues over cultural issues with regard to the Central Asian countries constitute some important reasons for the limited impact of the tourism policies on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s cultural diplomacy in Central Asia.

Tourism literature is devoid of a concept by the name of the Smart Tourism Organization (STO). Given the lack of research into this concept, some questions arise around it. For instance, given the advances in tourism in the new millennium, what has changed in the structure of tourism service organizations? Considering the competitive nature of the tourism industry and the technologies advancement, can the traditional structure of tourism organizations satisfy tourists, managers, stakeholders, and employees? The present study was conducted with a comprehensive approach to organizations in the postmodern era (Hatch, 2018) and seeks a new type of organization for the subject of STO. This new type of organization recognizes the different dimensions of intelligence in the external environment of organizations and seeks to train them. The primary purpose of this study is to select the dimensions of intelligence in tourism organizations and the effect of these dimensions on the development of a smart tourism organization according to the situation of this industry. The Delphi method of the panel of experts was used to reach a consensus about the dimensions of smart tourism organization and to design the questionnaire. Fist, the literature on the subject was fully reviewed. The variables related to the topic were then extracted, and the Delphi method was used to confirm these variables and their relevant questions. A total of 24 management faculty members (Ph.D.) and senior tourism officers were selected as members of the Delphi panel. Twelve people with specialist organizations and 12 people with tourism expertise were also selected for the panel. After four Delphi rounds, the consensus was reached on the questionnaire and its variables. In the next stage, the questionnaire validity and reliability were measured, and their data are presented in the quantitative analysis section. The research population consisted of all the experts working at tourism organizations in South Khorasan Province, including Iran, tourism agencies, hotels, and experts of cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism in this province. The census method was used to determine the statistical sample of the research. The questionnaires were distributed among 37 tourism organizations and 356 experts (See Table 1). In the last step, for the quantitative analysis of the data, Smart PLS and SPSS software were used.
  According to tables R2 values of 0.536 are substantial for the proposed model. Tanenhaus et al. (2004) suggest the Goodness of Fit (GoF) test for a PLS path model validation globally and specifically (Henseler and Sarstedt, 2013:569). The GoF is defined as follows:R2: 0.536 To determine the quality of the GoF of the overall PLS-SEM model, Witzels et al. (2009) suggest the following criteria: GoF small (0.10), GoF medium (0.25), and GoF large (0.36). Accordingly, the GoF of the model is confirmed with a value of 0.616. The model is confirmed and the hypotheses are tested in Table 6. The present study is thus the first step in expanding the field of smart tourism organization in tourism literature that has contributed to the design of a model and presented dimensions that can be further developed and transformed in the future by other researchers. STO can be considered an introduction to a new form of tourism business. This study is the first attempt at developing STO and identifying the diverse dimensions of this concept. The findings may help tourism organization managers and other researchers better identify and develop intelligence in tourism organizations and research, especially given the limited works of research dedicated to tourism organization and management.

Tourism has grown considerably over the last half century as an economic and social activity. Tourism is a complex and expanding activity and it is an effective blow to promote the livelihood, employment and culture of nations. Tourism is considered as one of the tools for achieving development, as such, the combination of both domestic and foreign resources simultaneously has many social, economic, environmental and cultural benefits. By 2017, the number of tourists has risen to over one billion and 322 million. It's expected to reach 1.6 billion by 2020, with a turnover of more than $ 2 trillion around the world. About 10 percent of the global economy's cash flow belongs to tourism and its related activities, and 12 percent of the world's total spending is provided through tourism revenues. In most countries, in order to identify and objectify tourism activities, with a view to achieve developmental goals, places are being marked to create tourism facilities and services to tourists. In Iran, the one-sidedness of the country's economy and the problems of unemployment and the incompatibility of current economic structures with educational structures and the emphasis of planners on revenues from other sources rather than oil exports necessitate the expansion of economic activities in various fields, such as tourism. For this reason, many local, regional and national planners are planning to develop tourism. The Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism for a variety of tourism facilities, according to the relevant regulations, has issued activity license to the private sector. One of the facilities that the organization licenses for the private sector is the Typical Tourism Areas. The Typical Tourism Areas are established as one of the tourism facilities in order to provide services to tourists and to reduce or eliminate regional imbalances and inequality of income and to create employment opportunities. The Typical tourism areas are areas approved by the regional and comprehensive developmental plans and have a specific area that is close to or within the range of historical, cultural, religious, natural or other attractions that may have the potential to create tourism facilities. The Typical Tourism Areas are distributed throughout the country and their number is 1,168. In general, based on developmental patterns there are two main approaches for creating the Typical Tourism Areas: 1. Creation of the Typical Tourism Areas in areas where there is a need for infrastructure and services due to the large number of tourists and the lack of welfare facilities. 2. Leading investors to areas that have attraction and potential, especially in less developed regions, which are unknown and by creating facilities and services, trying to identify these areas for attracting tourists to achieve regional development. Considering that out of 1,168 tourism destinations in the country, 240 regions are licensed to invest and operate and only 55 regions are in operation phase. this research attempts to answer this question, which are the shortcomings and challenges of the Typical Tourism Areas of the country? The present study is applied-developmental and in terms of purpose has been carried out in a qualitative method. The sample size included 63 people of investors and experts of tourism, has been examined as available samples. The method of this study is: after collecting the data, through the documents and the completion of the interviews and the questionnaire of the investors and experts, the findings have been analyzed with an analytical approach. Then, using the Delphi technique, the obtained findings were sent to the sample. After deriving and analyzing the data, it is specified that The Typical Tourism Areas are facing complex Deficiencies and challenges. According to the available information, in approving the Typical Tourism Areas, the requirements of the operation, the location of the regions, their compliance with the rules and regulations, their technical, economic and legal capacity are not considered. Using the Delphi technique in five steps to answer the questions, almost all respondents agreed on the most important deficiencies and challenges of the Typical Tourism Areas as follows: not having a feasibility study for most of typical tourism areas; statistical and quantitative attitude to these areas; the lack of proper relationships between investors and the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization; lack of proper monitoring of executive activities in these areas; vagueness in the boundary of most these typical tourism areas; lack of investment database; the lack of a coherent, precise and technical contract between the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization and Investors; the lack of cooperation of executive agencies in the development of tourism activities and infrastructure; some typical tourism areas are in the area of forest parks; some typical tourism areas are near the fourth areas under the protection of Environmental Protection Organization; Negative Consequences of focusing funds in the areas; Low applicants for large investments to invest in the areas; lack of cooperation of the operating banks to provide facilities to investors; low share of provincial credits to provide primary infrastructure for the areas; the length of the process of investigating and responding to environmental studies; the lack of a transparent procedure for the assignment of land and the length of the assignment process; abuse of national lands and increasing land price; Increased construction and land use change; increasing environmental pollution and environmental pressures. From the beginning of the establishment of the Typical Tourism Areas, the goals that have been portrayed by this approach to tourism development and subsequent development of the country have been diverted from its original path and now not only have been a problem in its tourism sector, but in many cases caused tensions between cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism organization and other executive agencies, the distrust of the private sector in tourism investment, the disagreement between investors and executive agencies. In the country, there are 1168 Typical Tourism Areas approved, which have many shortcomings, deficiencies and problems, and the existing problems have caused the operation and success of these areas to face a lot of challenges. In order to succeed the Typical Tourism Areas, these shortcomings and problems need to be addressed and to solve these problems, appropriate solutions must be considered.

Social networks are referred to databases whose primary goals are to set up and serve, establish communication and social interactions through their networks, share their interests and experiences. Social network users, through their activity in these networks, encounter a variety of information in different formats and contents (Jenkin, 2010). Basically, tourists need information about the destinations to choose their destination. They constantly collect information from the mass media, including TV, satellite, and internet. Tourists prefer to receive a significant portion of their information from sources, including relatives, friends, acquaintances, and others (Suvrey et al., 2014). Social networks can act as oral advertising and increase the credibility of shared information, because they create the ability to create two-way communication among users. Users of these networks, by sharing their experiences, travel to different places in order to persuade tourists (Jenkin, 2010) and by influencing behavioral variables, can attract tourists to diverse destinations. The present research is a descriptive-survey in nature. The statistical population of this study is the tourists visited Babolsar in spring and summer of 2017. Data were collected using a questionnaire and available sampling method. In order to evaluate the content validity, consultation with twenty of the experts was carried out and it was ensured that the questionnaire had the necessary validity. The alpha-chronbach for all variables was higher than 0.7, indicating the reliability of the questionnaire. To analyze the data, the structural equation modeling was used with SPSS22 technique. Facebook, Telegram and Instagram have been able to influence a lot on the feelings and attraction of tourists, so that in these three networks, a significant level of 99% is observed. In the section devoted to other networks due to the variety of existing networks, this part has a significant 95% level, which has been influenced by both WhatsApp and Imo networks to a large extent, but the Twitter and YouTube networks did not have a significant impact. This is due to the poor performance and inadequacy of these networks within the country. Advertising and information disseminated through social networks can play a very important role in tourism destinations. The use of smart methods in social networks in the field of tourism can provide useful information about the specific region to tourists and accordingly multiply the chance of success in emotional marketing. The results of this research in the first hypothesis section are approximated with the results of Garsouse & Chen (2000), Krestetter and Chou (2004), Mangold & Faulds (2009), Monar (2012), Jalilvand et al (2012), Akbari et al (1394), Peydaii et al (1395) and it is only different in the studied environment and the partial criteria.
  The results of this study indicate that the use of social networks is a fundamental way of creating new views in the future and attracting tourists through oral presentations. Satisfied tourists can be influenced by the use of social media to improve the tourism status of a destination. In this way, some people can share their experiences of travel and destination by photo or video, and even short-hand manuscripts, with other tourists who are in the decision-making stage or at the destination stage, and can benefit from the experience they have gained. In the present study, this effect was studied with the role of mediator of emotion and the quality of brand relationships. According to the results and analyzes performed in this research, the role of emotions and emotional variables in the transmission of oral speeches is evident. The emotional factors give the recipient a better understanding of the subject. Regarding the results of this research and many studies conducted in the field of oral advertising, the researchers believe that oral verbal statements have positive and proper results and negative oral statements have led to inappropriate results in the business category and attracting customers. So this should be under the control of tourism managers and should be managed as far as possible in this area.

In recent years, the increasing number of wealthy Muslims has propelled halal industry (halal: permissible according to Islamic law) to provide a way of life including halal travel and halal hospitality services. Although Iran is an Islamic country and has all of conditions for halal tourism but its share is only 160 million dollars, equivalent to 3% of the world's halal tourism industry and in the ranking of top destinations of tourism halal in 2018 is in the 17th position. The rapid growth of the Halal Tourism Market and the competition of destinations to obtain a part of this market due to its potential economic, cultural, religious and political potential show the need to pay attention to Halal tourism and the competitive presence in this market. Since the starting point for genesis of strategies for improving the competitive position of a destination can be considered similar to the factors affecting competitiveness, this study aims to prioritize Iran's competitiveness factors in halal tourism based on a model from competition model of Dwyer and Kim. Data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire which completed to Internet way by 192 people from the supply side in the tourism industry, including experts and activists in the field of tourism in Tehran. These people selected by using judgment sampling. To analyze the data, T-test and Friedman used. The results of the analysis confirmed the seven hypotheses proposed of the study as Iran's competitiveness factors in halal tourism. Also, the priority of these factors respectively is "Situational factors of Iran in halal tourism", "Destination management in halal tourism", "Iranian-Islamic cultural/historical heritage", "demand condition for Iran's halal tourism", "supporting factors in halal tourism", "Muslim arbitrary natural heritage" and "created resources based on halal tourism". Halal tourism as a type of tourism for Muslim tourists in which people travel for pleasure and having fun through adherence to religious law, significantly increased in the past decade. Due to the potential economic, cultural, religious and political advantages of halal tourism and the availability of the necessary capacities for this type of tourism, it is expected that Iran will be pioneer in terms of attracting halal tourists rather than other countries. But according to the report of the Crescentrating Institute in 2018, Iran has ranked 15th among the 48 countries surveyed of the member of Organization of the Islamic Conference. It seems that the halal feature of tourism activities in Iran has not created any competitive factor. New destinations, especially in Asia, have realized the need to focus on this market and are competing to become Muslim friendly destinations. It's expected that halal tourism will attract non-Muslim tourists who are looking different cultural experiences as well as. Consequently, considering the appropriate conditions for halal tourism development in Iran and the goal of attracting 20 million tourists to Iran by 2025, the development of halal tourism in Iran can be a practical way for inviting the world people to visit the merciful Iran, as well as the solution of cultural growth, social development, compensation solutions of Shortage of the oil economy and the means of realizing a resilient economy. Consequently, due to the lack of research on Iran's competitive status in halal tourism, present study attempts to identify and prioritize Iran's competitiveness factors in halal tourism in order to increase Iran's competitive power as a halal tourism destination and Iran can benefit from potential capacities of halal tourism. The present study is an applied, quantitative and descriptive research with a survey strategy. Data analysis was performed through using SPSS statistical software in two sections, descriptive and inferential statistics. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, t-test and Friedman test were used for inferential statistics.
  The data analysis results confirmed the seven proposed hypothesis of the research. Friedman's analysis of variance test showed that there is priority among the accepted factors. Based on the results, In order of priority, Iran's competitiveness factors in halal tourism are "Situational factors of Iran in halal tourism", "Destination management in halal tourism", "Iranian-Islamic cultural /historical heritage", "demand condition for Iran's halal tourism", "supporting factors in halal tourism", "Muslim arbitrary natural heritage" and "created resources based on halal tourism". The purpose of this study was to identify and prioritize Iran's competitiveness factors in halal tourism, derived from Dwyer and Kim Destination Competitiveness Model. The results showed that situational factors and destination management in halal tourism are more important than other factors and taking planned decisions will also provide context for the realization of other factors. In this regard, it is necessary to support the private sector and remove the rules and red tape in the light to create appropriate security and infrastructure by the government. Iranian cultural-historical resources ranked in high priority, third rank. In this regard, branding of halal food and the holding of halal food tours and festivals, as well as the emphasis on the features of Islamic and Iranian architecture and the existence of the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS), have the potential to be used to increase the competitiveness of Iran in halal tourism. Putting the demand condition for halal tourism in the fourth priority indicates the necessity of matching the halal properties, the characteristics of the destination and the quality of services to increase the domestic demand for halal tourism and the satisfaction of foreign tourists. Supporting resources in halal tourism ranked fifth priority. Thus, it's imperative that officials consider improving the political and economic relations of Iran with countries of origin halal tourism, including improving the conditions for granting visas. Also, due to unfriendly encounters with Muslim tourists in recent years, it is imperative that hospitality be introduced as an intangible element of tourism product and a prominent feature of the Iranian people to the world and shape a proper image of Islamic Iran in the minds of people around the world. Putting the natural heritage and created resources in the last priority showed ignoring the more important factors will not allow the full use of the competitive ability of these two factors.

The main goal of the present research is to measure cultural empathic skills of front-line employees of five 4 and 5 star hotels from Parsian hotel group. This will identify weaknesses and strengths of such skills and consequently, will pave the way for formulating appropriate strategies so as to improve the weak points. Data were gathered using self-reported questionnaires based on Ethnocultrual Empathic Scale (Wang et al., 2003). The primary findings indicate that the minimum averaged score of this scale’s items (4.11) was well above the middle score of a seven-point Likert scale used in the questionnaire (3.5). So, it could be argued that the ethnocultural empathic skills/inclinations of this hotel group’ employees are not poor. Methodologically, the discrepancy between the current research and other research related to Wang et al.’s scale or other empathic scale lies in the fact that the former takes into account prioritization of various dimensions of empathy scale applying one of the multiple criteria decision making methods. This was done considering empathic skills and inclinations of the samples and an entropy-based TOPSIS to analyze the data. The final results show that the subjects are strong in empathic perspective taking, empathic feeling and expression, acceptance of cultural differences, and empathic awareness, respectively. This draws the attention of this hotel group’s managers to empower their front-line employees with two dimensions of acceptance of cultural differences and empathic awareness.   
  One of the factors affecting interpersonal relationships under the influence of   culture is emotions. Different cultures make individuals express their emotions towards same subjects by different ways and extents (Mahjoob, Ranjbarian, and Zahedi, 2015; Hosany, 2012). In this respect, the concept of cultural empathy is propounded, which takes into account individuals’ skills to understand values, feelings, thoughts, and behavioral states of others belonging to different cultures (Wilson, 2004). The role of front-line employees is of importance since they should possess appropriate cultural empathic skills to communicate with various customers belonging to different cultural backgrounds. The primary goal of the present study is to measure cultural empathic skills of  front-line employees in 4 and 5 star hotels from Parsian Hotel Group in order to identify the respective strengths and weaknesses, and further to provide necessary strategies for improving the weaknesses. Also, the secondary goal of this research is to rank various dimensions of cultural empathic skills of front-line employees in order to benchmark and compare such skills in the hotels mentioned above. The statistical population of the research consists of front-line employees in Azadi (5-Star), Esteghlal (5-Star), Evin (4-Star), Kowsar (4-Star), and Enghelab (4-star) Hotels. Out of these hotels, 29, 45, 12, 34, and 42 completed self-reported questionnaires were returned totally accounting for 162 questionnaires, respectively in a span of 10 days in August and September, 2017. The questionnaire consists of a modified version of the Wang et al.’s empathy scale and demographic characteristics. The original Wang et al.’s scale includes four dimensions (described in the literature review section) and 31 items through which individuals’ levels of empathy are measured. However, in the current research, the modified version of this scale comprising 23 items was applied.  Based on the method used in this research, before sampling from the population of employees, the Wang et al.’s empathy scale was discussed in individual semi-structured interviews with ten academics and practitioners   specializing in hoteling. To analyze the data, TOPSIS multi-criteria decision-making method with Shannon entropy weighting scheme were used. An exploratory factor analysis was carried out on 19 items of the empathy scale using SPSS software and a Varimax rotation and principal components method (eight and four items were removed at the stages of the semi-structured interviews and reliability verification, respectively). Based on the coefficients of rotated factor loadings, four dimensions with an eigenvalue of greater than one were created. The results of the factor loadings showed that there was only one item, out of “empathic Feeling and expression” with a factor loading less than 0.5. Therefore, it was discarded from the further analysis. In the end, all the remaining 15 items were   loaded significantly on their primary respective dimensions (four primary dimensions of the Wang’s empathy scale).
The next stage of the present research is to determine weights of each   four dimensions of the empathy scale through the entropy scheme. Based on the results, “empathic feeling and expression” (0.4640), “empathic perspective taking” (0.3228), “acceptance of cultural differences” (0.1101), and “empathic awareness” (0.1031) dimensions, accounted for the  highest weights, respectively Taking into account  these weights, the final  outcome  of  the TOPSIS method showed that front-line employees of the hotels under study possess more skills in “empathic perspective taking”, “empathic feeling and expression”,  “acceptance of cultural differences”, and “empathic awareness” dimensions, respectively. The results of this research are to some extent consistent with the results of a study by Albiero and Matricardi (2013). In their study on the statistical population of Italian students, it was shown that the highest scores obtained   from the dimensions of the Wang’s empathy scale belonged to “empathic feeling and expression” “empathic feeling and expression”, “empathic perspective taking”, “acceptance of cultural differences”, and “empathic awareness”, respectively. In fact, in both studies, the third and fourth dimensions rank similarly third and fourth places. Nonetheless, the dimensions were not intended to be ranked in the study conducted by Albiero and Matricardi, and the above-mentioned findings were presented merely based on the mean scores of the dimensions.   Feasibility of developing empathy skills led us in the present research to make an emphasis on the objective measurement of such skills among front-line employees of the hotels. Through identifying weaknesses of these skills, we can determine their educational needs, and take actions to develop and strengthen them accordingly. Hence, this study suggests that Parsian Hotel Group’s managers to take into consideration the two dimensions of acceptance of cultural differences and empathic awareness, empowering their front-line employees’ capabilities relevant to these two dimensions. For  instance,  awareness  of  ethnic  and  religious  discriminations  in  societies  at national and international levels, acceptance of guests’ cultural traditions,   and consideration of guests' food preferences are among the issues propounded in these dimensions.