Abstract

Purpose Sokcho, in Gangwon-Do, is one of tourism cities in South Korea as a mountain and marine tourism destination. Its popular tourism destination, however, does not reach far, and it is unclear whether its mountain tourism resources are enough to make Sokcho city anything more than just another interchangeable mountain sports tourism destination. This paper aim was to identify types of users of mountain sports tourism based on their subjectivity.
 Methods In this study, Q-methodology was adapted to explore how mountain sports tourists’ subjectivities toward this mountain sports destination and how they interpret those depictions.
 The authors used Q-statements to collect types of travel experiences in Sokcho city and analysis to identify the most popular tourism destination. Respondents who had in the last 3 years visited the Sokcho tourism destination and stated their statements were recruited on/off line. Total of 32 Q-samples were extracted from the visitors of Sokcho city.
 Results In this study, the perception for the activation of mountain sports tourism in Sokcho, which is recognized by mountain sports tourists, was identified. Through Q-analysis, it was found that mountain sports tourists had the three types of perceptions of - 'support of organization(type I)', 'strengthen of mountain sports tourism products(Type II)', improve of infra and service for mountain sports tourism(Type III)'.
 Conclusion Implications suggest that a competitive advantage for a mountain sports tourism destination in Sokcho city involves developing mountain sports tourism products and strategies that appeals to policy and market segments based on this subjectivity to tourism behaviors.

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