Motivational Factors on the Propensity to Use Sports Events Tourism Websites: The Utilization of UGT

Abstract

Even though extensive Internet research has been conducted around the world, there is still a lack of knowledge about motivational factors and their moderating effects on the inclination to utilize sports event tourism websites. Two theories are being utilized in this study – (i) the Sport Website Acceptance Model (SWAM) and (ii) the Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT). Customer-perceived values which are derived from the SWAM consist of four components including accessibility, flexibility, interactivity, and reliability, while motivation factors include informativeness gratification and entertainment gratification. This study utilized a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 530 sports tourists (315 males and 215 females) participated in three major sporting events involved in this study. Respondents were selected by using a probability sampling technique. The results of Pearson correlation analyses show that there was a significant relationship between customer-perceived value and the propensity to use the websites. The results indicate only 14.8 per cent of the total variance of the intention to use the websites was explained by customer-perceived value, entertainment gratification, informativeness gratification, the combination of customer-perceived value and entertainment gratification as well as the combination of customer-perceived value and informativeness gratification. The research findings would be practical and useful for sports tourism organizations in developing a distinctive sports tourism website on strategies to market their products and/or services effectively.