Abstract:

Cittaslow (Slow City) Movement is a new and developing practice which emphasizes the local distinctiveness and sustainability and seeks to improve “quality of life” of individuals (Pink, 2008: 163). Integrating the past traditions with the contemporary lifestyles, Cittaslow movement envelops progress and change based on sustainability. Through protecting the characteristics and its unique identity and features of the small cities with cultural heritage, CittaslowMovement fundamentally aims to prevent local characteristics and properties, the standards and life styles of local area, and the general city texture which differs the area from other cities, from disappearing.Hence, Cittaslow Movement presents a combination of culture, sustainability and heritage in tourism sector on the basis of quality of life. There are many Cittaslow cities all around the world and their impact has long been discussed in the past literature. However, none of these studies have modeled the impact of Cittaslow Movement in order to evaluate the real impact in a quantitative sense. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature and provide a mathematical model to measure possible effects of Cittaslow Movement in particular cities, with respect to the variables satisfaction, time, and so on. The paper will begin with the presentation of the historical development of Cittaslow Movement, and then it will discuss the key concepts with respect to CittaslowMovement such as culture, heritage, sustainability and quality of life. Next, the impact of CittaslowMovement in touristic places will be discussed by presenting a model. The model will suggest measuring the impact of Cittaslow Movement on the basis of the concept “quality of life” (QoL) which can be considered as a quantitative reflection of satisfaction variable. The model will not only take the change in the quality of life of tourists into consideration for the object of analysis, but it will also consider how quality of life of service providers (i.e. stakeholders in touristic destinations) is affected by the presentation of Cittaslow Movement. The expected result of the study is a general improvement in the quality of life of both tourists and local service providers. By presenting a model for the effect of Cittaslow Movement, the contributions of the movement will be better understood and it will provide a pathway for next steps in terms of innovation. All in all, Cittaslow Movement is a new innovation, targeting to protect individuals from consumerist understanding of tourism sector by slowing down touristic activities and focusing on entertainment and pleasure, it gets significant attention for scientific investigation.

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