Content Analysis of Iranian

As an academic discipline, Tourism has a relatively short history in Iran. Academic institutions contribution to tourism is divided into two distinct area: Human resource development, and research (as reflected by projects and dissertations). The importance of the research functions o the academic institutions gives incentive to researchers to study and analyze the content of dissertations on tourism. The principle aim of the present article is to review the research trends in Tourism in Iran. Content analysis was carried out on 155 dissertations produced between 1965 and 2006. Data for the research was collected by accessing Irandoc database. SPSS was used for statistical analysis. Descriptive single variable and dual variable analysis was employed. Independent variables included gender, number of pages, field of study, type of academic institution and the date the dissertation was defended. Research trends in tourism were the dependant variable classified into 22 sub categories and 11 categories. Research findings demonstrate that most of the research trends in tourism in Iran are confined to four subjects: Tourist complexes, Development of Tourism, Economic impact of Tourism and Tourism Planning. Least and most researches on Tourism was carried out during the period of Holy Defense (2%) and 1997 onwards (67%) respectively.