Socio-Cultural Dimensions of a Sustainable Pilgrimage City Case of Mashhad

Mashhad is the most important pilgrimage hub and religious travel destination in Iran and enjoys a privileged position in Shiite world. Considering the s status of spiritual travels in the world of tourism, the destination characteristics can play a significant role in deepening pilgrimage rituals and providing an appropriate condition for pilgrim's spiritual experience. This article analyzes socio-cultural dimensions of the pilgrimage city of Mashhad with the premise that it is a requirement for the host society to provide both software and hardware prerequisites for improving pilgrims experience. In the first step 8 factors and 42 indexes were identified and modified using affirmative factor analysis technique. The indexes were ranked in the process of fuzzy hierarchical comparison and each element and its indexes weight in sustainable religious tourism in Mashhad were determined. The findings showed that security and safety in the destination and the host community training have the most important factors.