Ali Afshar, Mona Erfanian Salim
This paper studies the assumed relationship between tourists’ needs and the concept of happy city in the urban open public space (UOPS) in Kish Island as the most favorite tourism destination of Iran in the Persian Gulf. The main research question is “how answering to the tourists’ needs in UOPS can directly affect the happiness of Kish Islanders and visitors?”. The literature review is employed to establish a conceptual framework for the paper. For this purpose, various theories and definitions have been reviewed to have a better understanding of the two groups of key concepts including the tourists’ needs for UOPS and the factors affecting the tourists’ needs. These theoretical findings are also developed in the traditional context and the current context of Kish. These help to enhance the theoretical findings and to justify the claim and the direction of the research towards the concept of happy city. This paper also describes the methodological approach utilized and adopted in this study to find the logical answers to the main question of the research. Therefore, it employed an exploratory case study approach that found data from a comprehensive literature review, field observations, and semi-structured interviews. The outputs will guide the design of UOPS of the island as tourism has priority over other development strategies. Thus, this paper is meant to attend to and identify the needs in this tourism area and consequently create a novel link between the three bodies of knowledge, namely, tourism industry, urban design and happy city. Kish Island is a coherent social structure in the context of an extraordinary nature on the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, a network of sympathetic local communities and groups of tourists. The island can be a place where infrastructure and facilities are provided, through the awareness, place attachment and popular companionship, satisfaction of all tourists. So, Kish Island has to be a place where daily life, leisure, and tourism go beyond the boundaries of private spaces and are formed in the realm of urban open public spaces responding to the tourist’s needs.
Keyword: Tourists’ Needs, UOPS (Urban Open Public Space), Happy City
2020, The 6th International Conference of Euro-Asia Studies Association (EATSA), Sardinia, Italy