Cultural Heritage and Factors Affecting Tourist's Loyalty Destination (Case Study: Sari Historical Region)

In today's competitive market, returning tourists to destinations is one of the most important goals of tourism managers. This descriptive-analytical kind study done based on documentary and field studies. The main aim of this study is analysis of factors affecting tourist loyalty to historical attractions of Sari ancient region. The field surveys included the distribution of questionnaires and Gathering votes of 360 tourists visiting the area. In this study, components such as heritage capacities, managerial performance and tourism infrastructures are examined. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by several academic colleagues and the reliability of the tool was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha (.952). SPSS statistical software was used for data processing, and t-test, Mann-Whitney and linear regression were used for data analysis. The results show that loyalty is in favorable situation from tourist's viewpoint and gender does not affect loyalty. The destination cultural heritage capacities is the most influential factor on the loyalty variable, which is related to the multiplicity and diversity of heritage attractions. It can also be concluded that improving infrastructure status will have a positive impact on cultural heritage tourism development and increasing tourist's loyalty.