Meta-synthesis Push and Pull Factors in the Development of Religious Tourism

Identifying and measuring the motivation of tourists in the field of tourism destinations, makes it possible to understand the reason for their preferences and needs and also what motivates them to choose a destination and desire to experience provides important information to planners and marketers so that they can make a double effort to satisfy tourists. Using an applied-descriptive method and having a statistical population and valid domestic and foreign articles, the present study identifies and examines the effective push and pull factors in the development of religious tourism. Data collection was done from library sources and to achieve a deep understanding of the effects of the mentioned factors, the interpretive approach and meta-combined method were used. The research findings, which are the result of the analysis of previous studies, included 53 articles (21 Latin articles and 32 Persian articles) in the period 2005 to 2020 using the CASP criterion and led to the identification of 37 codes in two main themes: pull factors (five components: spiritual-religious factors, cultural and social-behavioral environment, service and welfare infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, safety, and security) and push factors (one component: spiritual-religious psychological motivations) that play an important role in the development of religious tourism and were categorized in the form of a conceptual model of the study. The validity of the study was confirmed by Cohen's Kappa index in SPSS software based on the views of experts other than the researchers of this study.