A Study of Service Quality Dimensions in Sport Tourism

The purpose of this research was to study the various dimensions of service quality in sport tourism. The method applied in this research was descriptive – correlation. The sample was used included 136 tourists that participated at the first national conference on sport tourism development and management in Shahrood. Researcher-made questionnaire that comprised of 35 items about the quality of services in tourism was applied as research Instruments. The content and face validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by expert university panel. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to test the reliability of the questionnaire (α = 0. 93). Descriptive statistics، factor analysis، and equation structural model was used in order to analysis of data. Based on exploratory factor analysis by varimax rotation، 32 items placed in 4 factors، these factors include “quality of place”، “quality of conference”، “quality of availability” and “quality of tourism”. Total variance of these factors explained %53. 82 variance of tourism services quality. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that each of the 4 factors influence on the services quality، and the fit indexes confirmed the conceptual model that presented in this study. Accordingly، the “quality of conference” and the “quality of tourism” with efficacy coefficients 0. 83 and 0. 64 were the most and least effect on the services quality of tourism respectively. So recommended to conference organizer and tourism managers، to considering these factors next to each other in order to increase and/or improve the service quality. And also، to the quality of scientific content and planning of conferences be paid more attention.