Challenges toward Sustainability? Experiences and Approaches to Literary Tourism from Iran

Interdisciplinary narrative studies are of great importance in several disciplines, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Cultural tourism and its sub-disciplines, including the complex issue of ‘literary tourism’, is an interdisciplinary field of investigation, positioned in between geography and urban–rural studies. In Iran, this form of tourism has been neglected so far—with no distinction between urban and rural areas—despite a particularly rich literary heritage. The present study recognizes the challenge of literary tourism in Iran, delineating some possible actions to develop it as a future engine of economic growth, especially in rural districts. As a contribution to a refined comprehension of literary tourism development paths, a content analysis was run collecting views and textual data on literary tourism in Iran. The empirical results of this study indicate that the mentioned challenges can be classified into several main dimensions and a broader set of sub-themes. The possible actions responding to such challenges can be classified into more dimensions and a vast number of sub-themes. Actions reducing territorial disparities and fueling entrepreneurship in local communities are appropriate to stimulate the emergence (and, possibly, consolidation) of literary tourism districts in Iran, giving an original contribution to sustainable development especially—but not exclusively—in rural settlements.