Identifying and Ranking the Economic Barriers of Sports Tourism in Iran

The aim of this study was to identify and rank the economic barriers of sports tourism in Iran. The method of this study was descriptive-survey. The statistical population included the researchers who had at least one book or two scientific papers in fields related to tourism and the administrative experts in this field holding at least a bachelor's degree, with at least 10 years of experience. The population size were about 500 researchers and 450 of experts among which 274 participants were selected using Cochran’s formula through stratified random sampling. The instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire whose face validity was confirmed by experts. To determine the content validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used. Cronbach’s  Alpha coefficient was calculated, 0.90. In order to rank the barriers, Friedman test was used and to compare expert and researchers’ view point, U-test (Mann–Whitney) was used.  The results showed that due to significant differences between factors, the most important barriers of economic development was the problem of sports tourists entering Iran and barriers to the development of investment in sports tourism rankded second and revenue-generating barriers earned through sports tourists ranked third. Therefore, in order to develop sports tourism and national use of its economic benefits, it is necessary to remove the barriers to the entrance of tourists in the first place. Thus, one of the first steps is to provide the infrastructure to develop investment and generate revenue correspondingly.