Mona Erfanian Salim and Osman Mohd Tahir
In contemporary urban thinking, public open spaces will be successful if respect their users’ needs. This study posits that in an island with tourist attractions, where users of urban open spaces are majorly tourists, these spaces are affected by numerous demographic factors and specifically clarify the factor of gender. It takes Kish Island in Iran as the case where supposed to enhance the open spaces and public zones due to its current development plans. The methodology of this study involved reviewing the related literature and subsequently conducting a tourist’ survey. The results clarified the factor of gender affecting tourists’ needs for public open space in Kish and showed the groups of needs that are more affected by it. Hence, some suggestions for planning and designing these spaces would certainly contribute towards improving the quality of in Kish Island as well as can be generalized for other cases with similar culture and climate.
Keywords: gender; tourists’ needs; open public space; Iran
2014, Tourism (An International Interdisciplinary Journal), Institute for Tourism, Hungary