Could People-First Tourism provide dignified and sustainable livelihoods for vulnerable Iranians?

As People-First Tourism rapidly spreads through North Carolina and is about to expand to different states and countries, developing countries are witnessing the uttermost signs of Human Rights abuses, poverty, lack of primary education, health and other basic living standards advocated by the UN. Tourism could play a crucial part in eradicating all these deficiencies because it holds considerable potential in creating jobs, boosting livelihoods through visitation of natural and cultural resources. 

Here in Iran, people are suffering from political issues that directly or indirectly have affected their daily life. Also, government leaders are so conservative in developing systems that may intervene their control over diffusion of information. In addition, lack of availability of information and trust between marginalized groups and city dwellers have led into intense isolation, difficulties and disparities. But presumably, People-First Tourism and its unique IT system could connect those two sides without interference of tour operators and other deterrents. 

In Iran, customers and investors have been affected by crippling sanctions due to political circumstances, by which many internal companies have faced bankruptcy and as a result, few overseas companies have been lured to invest in this country in recent years. Hence, any kind of enterprise and financing in any areas of tourism would be hard and in external terms roughly unattainable. Probably charities and philanthropic activities could be drawn into supporting local businesses and search for long-term results rather than giving money to the needy for temporary results. Nevertheless, when considering a possible implementation of a project like People-First Tourism in Iran, many factors should be taken into account:

 

1. Telecom 

Mobile market in Iran over the past five years has increased by 387 percent and has reached to 73 million subscribers. In addition, the company Hamrah Aval dominates Iran’s market share with 65 percent of mobile users in urban and rural areas. Moreover, signal strength generally varies from region to region[1], but in aggregate, it covers 80 percent of all rural areas across the country.

Hamrah Aval offers an efficient service similar to M-PESA in Eastern and Southern Africa. This Service called JIRINGI, reportedly has been used in the first two years of its implementation by almost two and a half million people. Users can pay bills, buy air-time vouchers, transfer money to another person who has already registered to the system and also buy products in stores. 

Individuals could get to the JIRINGI booths or ICT offices established throughout rural/remote areas, to cash their mobile wallet (credit) or transfer some money into their account. At the present time, there are about 859 ICT offices in or near rural & marginalized areas but not all of them are enabled to offer JIRINGI services. Nevertheless, Hamrah Aval stands as a sole telecom provider that could bring mobile banking and, as a result, access to small business transactions across Iran.

2. Empowerment 

Regarding provision of virtual market, there is not even one internet-based market provider like Fairtrade Tourism, Farm Stay U.S. and Open Africa in Iran that directly serves the hard-to-reach groups through offering their services and products to broad markets. Nevertheless, this issue is under consideration of CORC[2] of Iran as future goals. However, it should be noted that empowerment organizations like Open Africa have not just been a linkage between rural people and city dwellers, but they have obtained resourceful development schemes from creating jobs, strengthening infrastructures and building local capacities with the aid of experts and experienced groups.  

Unfortunately in Iran, empowerment of vulnerable individuals still should be identified and introduced to appropriate organizations. Indeed, empowerment of rural/marginalized groups is not addressed properly by non-governmental organizations and is solely looked at and considered as for physical renovations of houses and access roads. When I asked governmental organization of Crafts & Tourism whether there was any organization that coaches and nominates tourism entrepreneurs, they answered negatively and even were unfamiliar with any previous examples. Apparently, this issue is a key area that should be addressed to help Iranian marginalized and vulnerable people have access to markets of interested tourists and earn their living out of poverty. 

In Iran, many farmers complain about the lack of support by, for example, the ministry of commerce. They complain that their agricultural revenues are getting degraded by deteriorating policies, by the importing of products in lower price and lower quality and then collapse of local producers. Additionally, farmers accuse middle-men of buying their products at the lowest price and selling them to the customer even ten times more expensive. Presumably, a system like People-First Tourism could be used to leverage the pervasiveness of cell phones and facilitate the relation of sellers (of crafts and tourism services and agricultural products) and customers. 

3. Tourism  

The Iranian Statistical Center has confessed (as stated in its official website) that one of the widest statistical gaps of the country is the lack of information related to tourism. The most recent statistics available are from 2008, depicting relevant statistics of major cities of Iran. With reference to UNWTO Tourism Highlights (2011), in Iran, the number of international tourist arrivals has been nearly equivalent to those of Cambodia in Southeast Asia and Zimbabwe in Africa by which one can simply realize the existence of many problems concerning tourism management.

 Further, the dramatic drop in the value of Iranian currency against the US dollar, the number of Iranians who travel abroad has also fallen sharply. Interestingly, compared to the previous year, this issue brought about 40 percent increase in overall domestic travels during the last New Year's holiday period. In other words, Iranians are becoming more internationally isolated but perhaps the increased interest in domestic destinations is creating opportunities for small entrepreneurs. 

People-First Tourism is an interesting new project with much potential to make a difference to the lives of countless individuals with vulnerable livelihoods. The extent to which this project will be successful across the globe is difficult to predict, but as I ponder on its application to Iran, the following questions come to mind:

 Will People-First Tourism be able to engage alienated people in Iran?

 Will centralized political ideologies like Iran’s and those of countless other countries hinder the implementation of market-based solutions to inequity? 

Will People-First Tourism channel international tourists to aspiring destinations like Iran?

How will the People-First Tourism model and its implementation process have to adapt when applied to countries as different as Iran, Kenya, Chile, and the USA?

By:  Shahab Nazariadli

Lecturer, Department of Civil & Architecture, Islamic Azad University of Qazvin, Iran

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[1] Since BTS Antenna is established

[2] Central Organization of Rural Cooperatives.