Studying The Religious Tourist's Sense of Security in Recreational Places (Case Study: Mashhad)

Feeling of security, as a subjective dimension of security, is playing an important role in tourism development, both quantitative and qualitative, for pilgrimage destinations. Mashhad as one of the largest religious cities in Iran and as a city where the holy shrine of the 8th imam of Shia - Imam Reza- is located in it, attracts millions of pilgrims every year. In order to have permanent presence of pilgrims in entertainment venues and historic sites, such as Khajeh-Rabi tomb and etc…, for leisure, acceptable level of security is needed. This research is to measure the feeling of security in Mashhad pilgrims’ points of views based on three dimensions of security; physical safety, financial and morality. 400 questionnaires were distributed between the pilgrims who have entered the holy shrine from the four main gates. Results showed that pilgrims have the most feeling of security in historic sites in terms of physical security, safety and moral harassment. Overall physical safety was more considered between other dimensions. In Mashhad, feeling of security was a little more than average (between the ranges of 1-3) in leisure destinations between other dimensions.