Capabilities of Aras Free Zone, Sports Tourism and Provision of Effective Solutions to its Development

The present study aimed to investigate the capabilities of Aras free zone، sports tourism and provide effective solutions to its development. Study is descriptive-analytical based on field work. 70 teachers، administrators، sport and tourism experts in Aras Free Zone were selected as the sample from and 56 people answered questions. Measurement tool was a Likert scale researcher made questionnaire with 60 questions in which four factors of، strengths، weaknesses، opportunities and threats were studied. Validity was approved by several Professors in the field of tourism and sports tourism and the reliability of the questionnaire was obtained using Cronbach''s alpha (a =0. 78). For data analysis، inferential statistics including one variable t-test to compare the means was used and Friedman test was used to rank the strengths، weaknesses، opportunities and threats In addition in developing strategies SOWT was used. The results of the research indicate that from the perspective of the participants، beaches of the Aras River are the most important strength and a lack of public awareness of the benefits of sport and tourism in the region، is the most important disadvantage. Also Development of the shores of the Aras River was one of the most important strategies of sport tourism development and a lack of sponsors in the holding of sports events in the region was the main threat in the field of sports tourism. The results suggest that sports tourism in Aras free zone from the perspective of strategic position in the internal and external matrix is conservative.