Content Analysis of Research Articles in Sport Tourism of Iran

There are many resources and capacities for the development of sport tourism of Iran which is neglected in terms of performance and research. Objectives. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to describe and analyze the content of sport tourism researches of Iran. Methods. The statistical population of the study consisted of all research articles in the field of sport tourism during 2005 to 2018 that were collected from the internal and external databases (Academic Jihad of Iran) and the related internal publications system. Results. The articles were fallen into three levels: macro, intermediate and micro, 5 general axes and 17 subjects; the most articles focused on the macro level and the axis of tourism development (45.45%) and the least articles on the micro and psychological level (3.78%). At the intermediate level, the two issues of employment, revenue, and quality of service were more of a concern for researchers. The findings showed that among the sports management publications, the highest number of articles (10.28%) were published in the publications of the strategic studies of sports and youth of the Ministry of Sport and among non-sports management publications, the most articles were published in the Tourism Space Quarterly (5.6%). Methodologically, most of the articles used quantitative method and a researcher made questionnaire and standard (86.36%), and descriptive and factor analysis (41.66%). Most studies are done on professors and managers and experts in education and tourism (24.24%). Regarding geographical distribution, the most articles are done with the national issue (23.48%) and the provinces of Tehran, Isfahan and Mazandaran (13.64%). Also, about 90% of the articles are attributed to the 2010s. Conclusion. The analysis of the trend of articles in the field of sport tourism shows that the main challenge of the researchers in this area is the strategic dimensions and natural and climatic factors at the macro level; and the quality of services and employment and entrepreneurship is at the intermediate level and in continue, future researches can be focused on the planning on particular areas of tourism and some sociological issues in this area.