Abstract
With the growth in opportunities for amateur athletes to participate in competitive events, a major challenge for policy-makers of a sporting destination is to understand the role of small-scale recurring sporting events in attracting tourists and the variables that influence active sport tourist behavior. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate structural relationships between emotional experiences, perceived value, tourist satisfaction, and destination loyalty within the context of small-scale recurring sporting events by adopting stimulus–organism–response theory. Construct validity of the measurement scale was verified by confirmatory factor analysis, factor loadings, average variance extracted, and construct reliability. Reliability of the measurement scale was verified by Cronbach’s alpha analysis. A structural equation modeling test with maximum likelihood estimation was used to examine structural relationships between variables in the proposed model by analyzing responses of 301 survey participants. Results showed positive impacts of (a) emotional experiences on functional value and emotional value, (b) functional value on tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty, and (c) tourist satisfaction on destination loyalty. The results of this study: (1) show it is meaningful to include emotional experiences in examining active sport tourist behaviors; (2) confirm that both small- and large-scale sporting events should be considered as effective marketing strategies aimed at improving tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty; and (3) provide the effectiveness of applying an extended stimulus–organism–response framework in investigating sports-tourist behavior.
Highlights
Since tour and vacation destinations have become increasingly substitutable, destination loyalty has been widely recognized as a critical consideration when devising marketing strategies to secure competitive edge [1,2]
In the sport tourism context, Cho and his colleagues incorporated nostalgia as key stimuli that affect tourist behavioral intentions [22,23]. Considering these findings, the present study aimed to explore the relationships between emotional experience (S), functional value, emotional value, tourist satisfaction
The hypothesized relationships were tested by structural equation modeling (SEM)
Summary
Since tour and vacation destinations have become increasingly substitutable, destination loyalty has been widely recognized as a critical consideration when devising marketing strategies to secure competitive edge [1,2]. Emotions that were aroused at a tourist destination significantly affect post-visit experiences, such as satisfaction, place attachment, and destination loyalty [6]. Considering the importance of emotions among tourists, destination marketers and organizations try to produce and promote hedonic consumption experiences such as enjoyable, exciting, challenging, surprising, as well as pleasurable hedonic experiences and engagements [10]. Such positive feelings and emotions play essential roles in shaping unique, extraordinary, and memorable tourist experiences [8]
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