The Role of Privatization on the Development of Sport Tourism in Gilan Province

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of privatization on the development of sport tourism in Gilan province. The methodology was descriptive-survey based on structural equation modeling. The population included managers of sport boards, sport management professors, tourist agencies managers and their employees. 140 subjects were randomly selected as the sample. The data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire based on Likert scale. This questionnaire contained those items which were expected to improve by privatization such as employment and income, development of sport facilities and equipment, marketing service quality, sport events, attracting sport tourists, attracting investment and financial resources and infrastructure development. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts. Its reliability was calculated by Cronbach's alpha test (0.93). Research hypotheses were analyzed by t test, structural equation modeling and SPSS and LISREL software. The results showed that privatization of sport tourism developed 7 items. As all research hypotheses were confirmed, the importance of the privatization of sport tourism was confirmed. Therefore, if governments remove the barriers to the privatization and transfer the ownership to the investors, this industry will see a wide development.