Relationship of Social Capital With Innovative Behavior And Competitive Advantage of Active Sports Tourism Destinations In Bushehr Province

The purpose of this research was to study the relationship between social capital and innovative behavior, and the competitive advantage of active sports tourism destinations in Bushehr province. The research method was descriptive and correlation type, which was implemented in field method and it’s placed in the applied research category. Sport’s tourism is an important economic phenomenon that consists of the combination of sports and tourism. This phenomenon is an important source of income for sport’s tourists. Sport’s tourism is so profitable that all regions, even tourist destinations, benefit from it. As one of Iran's tourist destinations, Bushehr province has a high potential in the field of tourism, especially sports tourism. The most important benefit that tourists enjoy in tourism areas is social capital. The components of social capital in the local area include the trust, participation and cooperation of the people of the area, which plays an important role in the host society and among tourists, and this trust provides the basis for stronger communication between people and tourists. the communication and trust of the residents of the local area attracts so many tourists who can contribute thousands and even millions of dollars to help local economy. Social capital leads to the strengthening of innovation behavior in that region due to the relationship between the residents of the region and the tourists, the goal of innovative behavior is to introduce ideas, processes and products in mentioned region. Innovative behavior includes the implementation of more practical efforts to transform new ideas into practical solutions, as well as their implementation in the tourism area. The more this innovative behavior is implemented in the mentioned region, the more attention will be paid to gain a competitive advantage with other regions. The competitive advantage of a tourist destination becomes more competitive if it can attract potential tourists and satisfies them so they travel to the mentioned area again and choose it as their future tourist area. Therefore, many competitive efforts focus on advertising the destination of the mentioned region and its development. The development of the necessary tourism infrastructure in tourism areas leads to the promotion and improvement in the development of sports tourism, therefore, many competitive efforts focus advertising on destination and the development of the destination; tourism competitiveness is the ability of a destination to create, integrate and distribute tourism experiences. Bushehr province is considered as one of the important ports of southern Iran, which has been able to attract many tourists to this destination. Considering that nowadays touristic cities like Bushehr are in the global competition to attract as many tourists as possible, it is obvious that success in this field requires accurate use of marketing and branding tools, including accurate identification of target markets and effort towards special value of the city brand; One of the topics that can play a role in the branding of Bushehr is its beaches. Bushehr province provides travel motivation for every tourist because of its beautiful beach and scenery. Also, by creating suitable facilities on its pristine and beautiful beaches, along with sufficient accommodation centers, it can turn the province into one of the most visiting touristic destinations. The necessity of branding tourism capacities of Bushehr province is one of the special capacities and brands of the province, and more efforts should be made in introducing this capacity. For example, the city of Ganaveh has become a brand due to trade and shopping and the beach, which should be used more in the order to develop tourism. The establishment of private tourism accommodation facilities, which provide the necessity of developing accommodation infrastructure in Bushehr, can be the basis for economic and livelihood prosperity in the touristic areas of Bushehr province. The statistical population of the research includes the host community and Nowruz sport’s tourists from the touristic areas of Bushehr province who traveled to Bushehr province. The statistical sample of the research consisted of 500 people, 250 of whom were from the host community and 250 of whom were sports tourists who were randomly selected. Onyx Bolen social capital questionnaire (2000), Counter innovative behavior questionnaire (1998) and Hill & Jones competitive advantage questionnaire (2010) were used in data collection process. The reliability of the questionnaires Estimated in the preliminary study on 30 sample people and with Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 828/.857/882/. SPSS22 and Amos software were used for data analysis. The results of the model processing showed that the social capital of the local community and the host of sport’s tourism has an effect on innovative behavior in the field of sport’s tourism. Also, innovative behavior in active sports tourism destinations has a direct and significant effect to create a competitive advantage for active sports tourism destinations in Bushehr province. Also, the results of the model did not show the direct effect of social capital on the competitive advantage of active sports tourism destinations in Bushehr province. Therefore, paying attention to social capital in the local community and its components, especially neighborhood relations, participation, trust and social efficiency should be considered in strengthening innovative behavior in active sport’s tourism. The social capital of the local community in the cities of Bushehr province is obtained through cohesion and integration, creativity and ideation of the people of the region in the matter of various sports activities, which creates a connection between social capital and innovative behavior, the greater the amount of creativity and ideation and unity of the people of the region, it will facilitate communication with innovative behavior in the field of sport’s tourism. On the other hand, social capital is indirectly an important source for the competitive advantage of sports tourism destinations. Based on the results of this research, it can be said that paying more attention to the promotion of social capital in the local community of sports tourism destinations has led to the improvement, increase and facilitation of innovative behaviors in the field of sports tourism and increases the competitive advantage of active sport’s tourism destinations in Bushehr province.