An investigation of the factors influencing sports tourism development.

Today, tourism and sports enjoy a complementary interrelationship that directly affects national economies. Also sport tourism is, nowadays, considered the most lucrative industry worldwide. In addition, it may affect all social strata, economically and politically. Thus, needless to say that much attention should be directed at the industry through clear-cut policies, visions and constructive plans in this regard. To this end, in this paper, the authors investigate and offer guidelines for sport tourism development in Iran from economic, political, social and cultural perspectives by reviewing existing literatures. The data in this paper were derived from certain sources like related books, researches, articles and figures released by the World Trade Organization (WTO). According to the WTO, the tourism industry will witness a 4.1% rise by 2020 on an annual basis. Similarly, from 1995 to 2020, there will be an annual 8.4% increase in the number of tourists travelling to Iran. Currently, tourism is regarded as the main economic component involved in creating jobs and employment worldwide.   Key words: Sport tourism, sport industry, tourism, sport economy.