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Sport Marketing Quarterly, 2014, 23, 125-126, © 2014 West Virginia University

Marketing Sport Event Tourism: Sport Tourist Behaviors and Destination Provisions Kostas Alexandris and Kyriaki Kaplanidou

Kostas Alexandris, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Physical Education and Sports Sciences at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece. His research interests include consumer behavior in sport, leisure, and tourism services. Kyriaki Kaplanidou, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Tourism, Recreation & Sport Management at the University of Florida. Her research interests include sport event image perceptions, sport event consumer behaviors, and sport events’ impact on community development.

Sport tourism is one of the fastest growing forms of special tourism internationally; it is well documented today that it can contribute towards the economic and tourism development of local communities, cities, regions, and countries (Hinch & Higham, 2011). In the US, for example, the sport event sector is a prominent one and among the fastest-developing markets within sport tourism. There was a 10.5% event growth from 2010 through 2012 (Schumacher, 2012). This rise in the number of sport events that countries, regions, and communities host denotes the importance of sport events and sport tourist behaviors for tourism and eco­ nomic development.

While marketing research in the area of sport events can advance our theoretical and practical knowledge in this field, it is still limited. For example, there are not clear theoretical advancements regarding sport event tourist behaviors from both the participant and specta­ tor or the sport event media consumer perspectives. 1 his special issue of Sport Marketing Quarterly aims to increase academic awareness of the value of marketing theory in the field of sport events, and present empiri­ cal research from four studies conducted in different sport event settings that utilized different sport event consumers (participants and sport event media con­ sumers). Collectively, the papers advance our knowl­ edge by proposing that behaviors in sport event tourism include behavioral intricacies related to char­ acteristics of sport event tourists and the destination setting that is hosting the sport event.

In the first paper titled “Integrating Event Image, Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intention: Small-Scale Marathon Event” Koo, Byon, and Baker aim to investi­ gate the interactions among event image, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in the context of two small- scale marathon events in the US (Mercedes-Benz

Marathon Event and the Publix Marathon Event). The results of the study indicate that event image and satis­ faction were positively associated with behavioral intentions and that satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between event image and behavioral intention. Based on the results, the authors discuss marketing strategies to attract small-scale event (marathon) participants. The results of this study fur­ ther establish our knowledge about the role of event image perceptions in driving sport tourists behaviors that benefit the destination given that these events were recurring events.

In the second paper, “Marketing a Social Experience: How Celebration of Subculture Leads to Social Spending During a Sport Event,” Xing, Chalip, and Green aim to identify factors (sport culture, social motivation, and sense of community) that determine tourists’ amount of spending (eat in restaurants, drink alcoholic beverages, shop, and take tours) to support social experiences at an event. The data were collected from women football players competing at a three-day U.S. women’s football tournament hosted in the state of Florida. The authors tested and confirmed a model in which social motivation is influenced by identification with the women’s football subculture, which predicted the sense of community; sense of community significantly predicted social spend­ ing. The authors conclude that event managers should foster a sense of community among event participants in order to enhance social spending. Furthermore, the authors discuss that social motivation and subcultural identity are useful tools to promote a sense of communi­ ty among attendees. This paper advances our knowledge by showing how intangible consumer attributes such as identification with a sport subculture, sense of commu­ nity, and social motivation influence tangible outcomes for sport event tourism, namely social spending.

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In the third paper, “Motivation, Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intentions: Segmenting Youth Participants at the Interamnia World Cup 2012,” Prayag and Grivel aim to segment participants of a youth world handball tournam ent (Interamnia World Cup, Italy), according to their motivations, and further profile them by using demographics and post-consumption behaviors. The study concludes that there are four clusters of partici­ pants, named as “Indifferents,” “Enthusiasts,” “Socializers,” and “Competitive,” which differ by socio-demographics, overall satisfaction, revisit, and recommendation intentions. The authors discuss the profile of these groups and propose marketing strate­ gies to target them. This study contributes to sport event tourism marketing knowledge by suggesting that youth event participants attach different weights to certain event participation motives. This, in turn, cre­ ates homogenous motivational profiles that can assist sport event tourism marketers to achieve effective seg­ mentation strategies in youth markets.

Finally, in the fourth paper titled “Impact of Mega Sport Events on Destination Image and Country Image,” Kim, Kang, and Kim aim to test the degree to which a mega sport event (2008 Beijing Olympic Games) positively influenced the country and destina­ tion image. These authors applied a pre-post study design and used South Korean tourists as their sample, because it is one of the top tourism markets for China. The authors challenge the assumptions that mega sport events would necessary lead to positive changes of a country and destination images, since the results revealed mixed (both positive and negative) impacts. Patterns of image change varied according to sport involvement, media consumption, and previous visit experiences to the host country. Based on the results, the authors propose that inter-disciplinary research should be conducted and integrated marketing strate­ gies should be developed to improve destination and country images in relation to hosting international sport events. This study contributes to sport event tourism marketing by revealing the way in which tourists’ involvement with certain aspects of the Olympic Games and the host country influence the interplay of destination and country image perceptions on short haul tourists markets’ intentions (South Korea) to buy products from the host country of China and visit China for tourism.

In conclusion, the four papers comprising the special issue on marketing sport event tourism show that sport event tourists can determine certain outcomes based on their characteristics. These sport event tourist characteristics either relate to their involvement within and across the sport activity (e.g., socializing), the des­ tination itself, or result from an interaction of the

event and the destination attributes to create behav­ ioral outcomes relevant to destination marketers. These outcomes involve revisit intentions, social spending, and event satisfaction. Moving forward, future research should examine behaviors that involve reactions to the sport event experience during the actu­ al experience, given that real-time data through social media is becoming a mainstream approach in market­ ing research (Moran, 2012).

References Hinch, T., & Higham, J. (2011). Sport tourism development (2nd ed.).

Bristol, UK: Channel View Publications. Moran, R. (2012). The future o f marketing research. In R. Kaden, L. Gerald,

& M. Prince (Eds.), Leading edge marketing research: 21st Century tools and practice (pp. 414-439). London, UK: Sage Publications.

Schumacher, D. G. (2012). Report on the sports travel industry. National Associations o f Sport Commissions (NASC). Retrieved from https:// www.sportscommissions.org/Portals/sportscommissions/Documents/Ab out/NASC%20Sports%20Travel%20Industry%20Whitepaper.pdf

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