Aspects influencing the commitment of endurance athletes: a tourism perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACTVarious studies have been done on the sport commitment of endurance athletes who take part in events, but few have been done from the perspectives of both commitment and tourism. Such a combined approach, drawing on psychology and the social sciences, would benefit not only the endurance event but also the host destination. The Sport Commitment Model, an established model in the sport literature, is insufficient on its own to measure endurance athletes’ commitment. It should be applied in conjunction with other models and theories, such as involvement theory, and should take into account aspects such as lifestyle, event attributes and travel behaviour, whose influence on athletes’ participation specifically in endurance events has yet to be determined. To fill this gap in the sport tourism literature, an online survey aimed at endurance athletes participating in South African events was conducted in 2015. A questionnaire was distributed via South African endurance event websites and endurance sport social media. Data from 498 completed questionnaires showed that lifestyle, event attributes and travel behaviour were related positively to these athletes’ commitment. Structural equation modelling revealed that to encourage commitment, the focus should be on managing lifestyle and travel behaviour. Overall, the high mean values of the commitment factors indicated that endurance athletes are highly committed. Event organisers and marketers could use this commitment in marketing campaigns to ensure loyalty to their particular event, increase on-flow tourism from the event, spread event participation geographically, highlight the lifestyle benefits of endurance sport participation and decrease sport abandonment.