The effect of personal and environmental information sources on the image gap of sports tourists

Having a good image of the destination is a very important place in tourism development. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of personal and environmental information sources on the image gap of sports tourists.  The present study was applied and in terms of purpose was descriptive-correlational researches thatdata have been collected in the field. The statistical population of the study consisted of all tourists of Tochal, Dizin Shemshak and Abali ski resorts with at least 6 months of continuous presence or at least five times per year. To obtain the sample size, the Cochran's unlimited community sample size was used The sample size was estimated N=272. In this study, purposive random sampling method was used. All statistical calculations of this study were performed using SPSS statistical software and analyzes related to structural equation modeling using Amos software. The results showed that the mean score of the status of personal information resources, environmental information resources and the image gap of sports tourists and all its components indicated an unfavorable situation. There is a positive and significant relationship between personal and environmental information sources and the image gap of the destination of sports tourists, which means that with the improvement and increase of personal and environmental information sources, the level of the image gap of the destination of sports tourists will improve relatively well. Destination managers need to make sure that the information transmitted from different sources of information is attractive enough to attract potential tourists and provide an image that is close to reality.