Investigating the effective components in attracting the sports tourists (Case study: Guilan province)

This study aimed to investigate the effective components in attracting sports tourists to Guilan province. It was a descriptive and survey study based on the Delphi method. The research sample included 12 professors of sports management, tourism management, and tours specialists who have been selected using a purposeful sampling technique. Initially, Delphi courses continued until a theoretical agreement among the experts. The results were analyzed using the Kendall agreement coefficient using the SPSS software version 23. Then, the most important components in attracting sports tourists were identified and ranked by the TOPSIS method through Excel software. Findings showed that the most influential factors were selected included: the managers' familiarity with sports tourism marketing with an average weight of 8.43, cheap and qualified services with an average weight of 8.25, the presence of coastal areas, and easy access to forest and sea with an average weight of 7.90, the presence of professionals and experts with an average weight of 7.82, standard and safe transportation systems with an average weight of 7.75 and proper introduction of the site with an average weight of 7.72, and the expert agreement coefficient: 7.91. The results of the TOPSIS method showed that the management components with a similarity coefficient of 0.717 and the infrastructure components with a similarity coefficient of 0.685 for sports tourists should be strengthened to be able to host more tourists in the future, both in sports and in any other field in Guilan province.