Heritage Tourism Boom: Tourists’ Tendency to Revisit Sheikh Safi Al-din Ardabili Collection

The purpose of this paper is to explore tourism form and predictive components on the heritage tourists’ tendency to revisit Sheikh Safi Al-din Ardabili collection (Spiritual-historical area of Ardabil city, Iran). Research method has been descriptive survey; and, statistical population included all tourists referring the Sheikh Safi’s collection. 375 persons have been selected through convenience sampling and Cochran’s formula (with unspecified population size) to form the sample size. The results showed that among respondents, visiting historical monuments and heritage tourism takes place mostly in the form of family (41.9%) than individual tourism; and, marital status as a variable significantly affects the variables related to tourism destination image (except for destination emotional image), and tourism satisfaction. Also, according to the respondents’ viewpoint, the most attractive section of Sheikh Safi’s collection has been Chini-Khaneh. Considering the results of discriminant analysis, from among variables related to tourism destination image and tourism satisfaction, variables of welfare-health facilities, satisfaction from the staff, feeling of security, cultural acceptance, tourism costs, location and routes, cognitive image, overall image, awareness and interest, demographic characteristics (education, income) have significant effect on discriminating and predivtiving of respondent groups (in terms of their tendency to revisit).

Heritage tourism; Sheikh Safi Al-din Ardabili collection; Destination image; Satisfaction