Barriers to relationship marketing in sport tourism (Case Study: Kermanshah Province)

Introduction and Objective: There are various obstacles in implementing relationship marketing in sports tourism. On this ground, this research aims to identify and prioritize the existing obstacles in implementing relationship marketing in sports tourism.
Methodology: In terms of purpose, this is an applied research and in terms of data collection method, this is a descriptive-analytic research (AHP) based on the geometric mean technique. On this basis, a questionnaire based on paired comparison with 4 criteria and 16 sub-criteria was developed based on Ndubisi’s conceptual framework (2007) and it was distributed among the statistical population which included a combination of Sports and Youngsters head administration specialists and the employees of the head administration of cultural heritage and tourism of the province of Kermanshah (37 individuals).
Findings: results gained from the conducted analyses indicated that the obstacles related to the relationships factor with significance degree of 0.445,obstacles related to trust factor with the significance degree of 0.245,obstacles related to commitment factor with the significance level of 0.166, and obstacles related to conflict factor with the significance level of 0.144, respectively had the highest and the lowest importance in relation to implementing relationship marketing in sports tourism.
Discussion and conclusion: Communication is the heart of relationship marketing.Communication refers to the exchange and sharing of information in a timely manner and meaningful among tourists and providers of tourism services in the province.The higher the level of communication between tourists and service providers, the more likely it is to create a long-term or continuous relationship