Qualitative Modeling of Smart Tourism in the Sports Industry

Providing access to comprehensive tourism information is one of the major challenges. Undoubtedly, the most important factor accelerating tourism is the use of information technology, access, storage, and retrieval of information in the tourism distribution system. Therefore, the present study aimed to design a smart tourism model in the sports industry.

The present study is based on the purpose of basic research and is exploratory in terms of data collection. The data collection tool was a semi-structured in-depth interview. The statistical population included university professors who were familiar with the subject of tourism as well as tourism executives, and a targeted sampling method with the snowball technique was used. The collected data were analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding, and the final pattern was extracted.

The final model consists of a set of central categories, causal conditions, necessary contexts, intervening variables, strategies, and consequences of smart tourism for the sports industry.

In general, it can be said that the use of digital tools will bring countless benefits to businesses and activists in the sports tourism industry. Including the development of tourism to reduce reliance on oil and exit the mono-product economy. Also, the sports tourism industry with its unique value chain on the one hand is faced with digitally transformed tourists and on the other hand with basic spaces such as the origin of travel, travel route, tourist destination, and its external environment.