Investigation the Effect of Free Trade and Industrial Zones Strategic Alliance on Iran's Tourism Industry Development

Strategic alliance formations have increased dramatically over the past decade and, in many industries, alliances are now a central strategic component and a core offensive and/or defensive competitive weapon. Strategic alliances have shifted the fundamental competitive paradigm in many domestic and international markets from traditional firm-to-firm competition to more alliance-based, network-vs.-network competition. It's better to say regardless of the industry or type of business, strategic alliances are the best way for a company to compete and succeed in today’s networked economy. One of the industries which needs to this competitive tool is tourism industry. The tourism industry is global and big business and encouraging the development of the tourism sector is all the more important today given its important role in country’s economic, cultural and political development. Also, attention to the industry for developing countries like Iran which relies on oil-incomes is necessary. The main goal of this research was investigation the effect strategic alliance on Iran’s tourism industry development. So, we have developed and tested a conceptual model related to the most important dimensions of strategic alliance which can have a significant impact on tourism industry development and its indicators. The structural equation model was tested with Amos using data gathered from four Free Trade and Industrial Zones in Iran (Anzali, Aras, Maku and Arvand). The results show that the overall fit of the model was satisfactory, which indicate a sufficient validity of the model. As well, of the four hypotheses tested, all were accepted. Therefore, the claimed importance of the strategic alliance was confirmed. The findings suggest that top managers should form strategic alliance to compete and succeed in today’s environment inherent uncertainties and issues, though building a strategic alliance and making it work are not easy, and after building it, manage alliance and evaluate their alliance periodically and modify/improve it for achieving to more desired performance. In final we offered some avenues for further research.