Evaluating of Sports Tourism Development in East Azerbaijan Province

The aim of this research is to investigate sport tourism potentials and factors affecting their development in East Azerbaijan. 40 people were selected from among managers and authorities of sport and tourism (including all staff of general administration of physical education and Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization of East Azerbaijan) through simple random sampling as subjects in summer 2014. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire which validity and reliability were used by content validity (opinion of professors and experts related to sport and tourism issues) and Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. It was finally analyzed using SPSS software using factor analysis. To evaluate the capability of sport tourism development in East Azerbaijan, three types of factors were studied including; 1. Push factors, 2. Pull factors and 3. Deterrent factors. The most important components of push factor were identified as achieving peace, relaxation, and physical and mental refreshment. The most important component of pull factor is transportation situation and the most important element of deterrent factor is insufficient leisure time in development of sports tourism in East Azerbaijan Province.