The analysis of the effects of the presence of non-Iranian religious tourists on the quality of citizens' lives (Case study: Samen Area of Municipality of Mashhad)

Religious tourism, commonly referred to as tourism in the religion, is a form of tourism in which religious people (individually or in group) travel for pilgrimage, religious propaganda or cruise (exploratory). Hence, nowadays religious tourism has been considered in order to earn money as well as to preserve the cultural heritage. This article attempts to investigate the effects of the presence of non-Iranian religious tourists on various aspects of citizens' lives living in the Samen area of Mashhad. The research method in this study is applied and methodologically descriptive-analytical. Data collection was done based on library and field methods, and data analysis was done as descriptive (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (single-sample t-test and factor analysis method). The research population consisted of 118 households in Samen region, which according to the Cochran formula, 90 households were selected. The findings of the study show that the presence of foreign religious tourism in the Samen area of Mashhad has had one of its greatest impact with an average of 3.353 on the economic dimension of citizens' lives. Factor analysis results show that 6 factors are more than 1. Also, according to the cumulative percentage of variances, the total number of factors from 1 to 26 explains 51.59% of the total variation. The effects of foreign religious tourism on the Samen area of Mashhad after categorizing in factor analysis shows that "economic prosperity and job creation" in the region with 15.2% of variance are known as the most important factor. According to the findings, solutions such as creating suitable job opportunities, creating culture for maintaining social identity and reducing the negative effects of tourists' presence, suitable location for projects in the change of use and construction in the region, etc. are suggested.