The Role of Religious Tourism and Empirical Marketing in the Development of Entrepreneurial Sports Opportunities in Mashhad

This study investigates the role of religious tourism and experimental marketing in developing entrepreneurial sports opportunities in Mashhad. As the first step, the study's statistical population consisted of all tourists in Mashhad who have been there for at least one week for religious tourism and have also visited this city's recreational and sports centers. Moreover, three standard questionnaires were used to collect data and to analyze the data, the Skewness and Elongation tests were used to determine the data distribution, one-sample t-test to compare the mean of variables with the hypothetical standard, Kendall W test to prioritize the components from the sample view and modeling equations were used; on top of that, all analysis was performed using SPSS software version 23 and SmartPLS version 3. The results showed that the average score of religious tourism, experimental marketing, and entrepreneurial sports opportunities and their components are relatively good. Hence, their average score was more than three. Results also showed that religious tourism and empirical marketing positively and significantly affect developing entrepreneurial sports opportunities in Mashhad. Finally, the structural equation model of the relations of the three main variables of this research and their components had a suitable fitting.