Iranian Tourism Marketing Objectives: An Active Sports Tourism Approach

Today, tourism has become a very profitable industry with explosive growth and can solve many economic problems. Iran has a high potential to exploit the tourism industry at the international level. Therefore, the research aimed to identify and categorize the types of tourist attractions in Iran and formulate marketing objectives for developing the tourism industry in Iran using active sports tourism leverage.

The research methodology was grounded in theory with Strass & Corbin approach. The sampling method was theoretical sampling. After conducting 31 interviews with tourism industry experts and using literature, theoretical saturation was achieved.

The findings showed that there are 16 tourist attractions in Iran: religious, historical, natural, health, entertainment, heritage, sports, desert, mountainous, wildlife, islands, villages, towns, urban, sociocultural, and shopping attractions. Finally, eight marketing objectives were formulated to increase international tourists in Iran using active sports tourism leverage and earn more from this industry. They include introducing and advertising Iran's active sports attractions among religious tourists, focusing on Russian and Chinese tourists by offering desert attractions; marketing Iran’s adventure attractions; offering different interests of Iran in one product package among international tourists; marketing Iranian products and handicrafts among international tourists; ecotourism marketing for Iran's tourism-target villages and towns; marketing for Iranian islands and their water-based sports attractions among wealthy international tourists; and Marketing for Iran’s health-attractions.

Originality:

In this article, the authors identified and categorized the types of tourist attractions in Iran and analyzed the marketing objectives necessary for developing the tourism industry in Iran using active sports tourism leverage.