Place attachment and attendees’ experiences of homecoming event

This study explores the complex of attendees’ experiences in the context of homecoming events that overlap sport activities, event, and tourism elements during a weekend. Focusing on alumni attendees who travel to the college town for the event, the present research argues that these attendees have multiple identities such as event attendees, university alumni, and destination tourists. Derived from this notion, this study proposes and examines two dimensions of attendees’ whole event experiences: event program-related experiences and destination tourism experiences. In addition, relationships between the whole event experiences, place attachment, and satisfaction are empirically tested. The results indicate that place attachment and satisfaction are significantly enhanced by attendees’ experiences of Event Programs & Information, Destination Products, and Natural Environment. Alumni attendees tend to evaluate their experiences more positively when they have a unique perception of the college town and a strong emotional bonding with their Alma Mater. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are also discussed.     

Similarities and differences in constraints and constraint negotiation among Japanese sport tourists: a case of masters games participants*

ABSTRACT

The purposes of this study were to examine (a) similarities and differences in constraints to and constraint negotiation for masters games (MG) participation, and (b) the relationships among constraints, constraint negotiation, and intention to participate in the World Masters Games 2021 Kansai, across international sport tourists, domestic sport tourists, and sport excursionists. An online survey was conducted with 449 Japanese people who participated in MGs within the last three years. Our results indicated that international sport tourists experienced higher levels of psychological, physiological, interpersonal, financial, tourism, commitment, MG-specific constraints than domestic sport tourists and sport excursionists, although physiological constraints did not differ between international and domestic sport tourists. Conversely, international and domestic sport tourists utilized tourism and MG-self-adaptation negotiation strategies more than sport excursionists. Lastly, constraints to and constraint negotiation for the past MG were not related to the intention of participation in the World Masters Games 2021 Kansai across the three groups. These results suggest that this typology of sport tourists – international, domestic, and excursionist – is an effective framework to understand constraints and negotiation as well as other behaviors and experiences of Japanese sport tourists.     

“I’m a completely different person now”: Extraordinary experiences and personal transformations in sport

Many sport programs aim to positively impact participants’ lives, but there is little understanding of how sport leads to those changes. The purpose of this study was to examine an extraordinary experience and the participants’ interpretations of that experience as well as their feelings of personal transformation through the experience. In doing so, the authors developed an understanding of how sport can be used to create meaningful life changes at the individual level. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 past participants of a long distance cycling ride that raised money and awareness for cancer research. Data analysis included three rounds of coding. Participants reported that the unusualness and sense of newness of the ride, the high levels of emotional intensity experienced, and the deep interpersonal connections developed led to a sense of empowerment and new meaning and purpose in life. Results indicate that extraordinary experiences contribute to lasting personal transformations, beyond intended behavior changes, within sport and out of sport. The characteristics of extraordinary experiences that contribute to personal transformation are discussed, as are suggestions for sport managers to leverage extraordinary experiences to create positive personal transformations.     

Well-being of cycling tourists in Hainan,China

Abstract

Bicycles are now gradually losing their attraction for utilitarian use, but in recent years, cycling for tourism and recreation has gained in popularity. However, the experiences and well-being involved in cycling tourism from a theoretical perspective have received little attention. This article intends to explore the relationships between cycling tourism and well-being by studying cyclists on Hainan Island in China. Interviews and participation observations were used to collect data. The types of cycling tourists were firstly identified and classified, followed by analysis of how the tourists obtained well-being through physical and social activities and their contexts. The study finds that human–bicycle relationships and China’s collectivistic culture play important roles in how cycling tourists obtain well-being. This study provides a mobility perspective on cycling tourism and well-being.     

‘Playing with space’: a conceptual basis for investigating active sport tourism practices

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a conceptual tool, the expression ‘playing with space’, for the analysis of active sport tourism as a meaningful social practice. The expression issues from practice theories and pragmatic understandings of space, which emphasize the processual and contextual dimensions of human action and seek to seize altogether the corporealities and shared conceptions that constitute action. On such views, sport tourists are considered as reflexive and embodied beings, enjoying sensations, mobilities and places, and constantly (re)making sense of their own practices. I argue that the notion of ‘play’ allows for a comprehensive understanding of the ways active sport tourists engage with space, where space is viewed as an object or material for this play. Three major dimensions of active sport tourism are then identified: a set of playful and game-like practices with global space resulting in shared imaginaries and large-scale mobilities; a kinaesthetic play, based on freedom and sensations and deeply engaged in the materiality of the places and the omnipresent media practices that support the other dimensions of play while being fully integrated into the experience of sport tourism. This conceptual framework is a way to better understand the motives and practices of sport tourists; it is also a way to underline wider trends of contemporary leisure cultures: such cultures are increasingly integrated into the daily spheres of activity, increasingly playful and increasingly mediatized.     

Accumulating subcultural capital through sport event participation: The AFL International Cup

In this study, the authors use participant interviews to examine how participating in an international event enabled the accumulation of subcultural capital. The authors conducted interviews with players (N = 9) in the Australian Football League (AFL) International Cup from Canada, USA, New Zealand, and Ireland. The AFL International Cup created a liminal state offering individuals with opportunities for: (a) national representation; (b) international competition and comparison; (c) cross-cultural learning and interaction; (d) sport subcultural engagement; and, (d) authentic game experiences. The resulting experience enabled participants a deeper connection with the sport subculture, which created the potential for sport advocacy in their home countries. Results will assist international sport event hosts in creating meaningful participant experiences that facilitate deeper personal attachments to the sporting subculture.     

Experiences of amateur athletes’ non-participating entourage at participatory sport events

ABSTRACT

The proliferation of participatory sport events is attracting scholarly attention, with extant research primarily focusing on profiling participants, and understanding participants’ experiences. The experiences and perspectives of those who travel to participatory sport events to support competing athletes, the ‘non-participating entourage’ (NPE), have largely been overlooked. This stakeholder group is arguably under-recognised by those staging participatory sport events. The purpose of this study was to explore NPE experiences at participatory sport events, adopting a phenomenological approach and employing stakeholder theory as an interpretive lens. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 NPE of amateur athletes in Australia. Findings highlighted that NPE provide emotional and logistical support to their athlete at events. However, while providing support, NPE also experienced positive and negative emotions arising from contextual factors including their relationship to the athlete, group composition, athlete performance, and event design and conditions. This research highlights a vexed, though crucial stakeholder relationship between NPE and event management organisations, requiring unique stakeholder management strategies.     

我国体育赛事旅游目的地可持续发展:利益相关者视角分析

体育赛事旅游目的地的可持续发展需要对不同的利益相关者建立相应的利益管理机制。运用文献资料法对可持续发展理论和利益相关者理论进行系统归纳和评述,在此基础上,就体育赛事旅游目的地利益相关者的界定、构成和分类进行探讨。体育赛事旅游目的地利益相关者分为:核心利益相关者、蛰伏利益相关者、边缘利益相关者三部分,并主要对体育赛事旅游目的地的政府及其职能部门、体育赛事旅游企业、赛事旅游者、当地居民这四个关系密切和影响力较大的核心利益相关者进行分析,期望通过构建“双向沟通-协调合作-互利共赢”的核心利益相关者管理机制构建体育赛事旅游目的地利益共同体,进而实现体育赛事旅游目的地的可持续发展。     

Leveraging sport events for tourism gain in host cities: a regime perspective

ABSTRACT

Proponents often claim that bidding for and hosting sport events have an overall capacity to generate a variety of benefits for cities and regions. Despite limited empirical evidence to support these assertions, cities continue to vie for hosting rights. In an effort to maximise the benefits of hosting, host cities have adopted a strategic approach to event planning and management referred to as event leveraging. A critical concern raised in the leveraging literature is how event-related strategies fit with the broader tourism development agenda of cities and regions, and how they are implemented. This paper uses Urban Regime Theory (URT) to understand how and why cities seek to host events, and how the process of leveraging is undertaken to maximise the benefits of hosting. Viewing events and strategies in the context of regimes, highlights why some cities and regions have been successful in leveraging sport events for tourism gain over time and, importantly, why some have not. This paper synthesises the existing body of work on tourism-based sport event leveraging, identifies three ways academic research has explored leveraging, and uses regime theory as a lens to further our understanding of the leverage process in host cities.     

‘Doing it for Dot’: exploring active ageing sport tourism experiences through the medium of creative analytical practice

ABSTRACT

This is a true story about the active sport tourists encountered at the 17th World Veterans Championships (WVC 2014), with a particular focus on the movements and memories of the world's oldest international table tennis player. Through the employment of creative analytical practice and, more specifically, creative non-fiction, I offer an (auto)ethnographical narrative designed to target your sociological imagination, engendering a deeper, personally applicable, appreciation towards the consumption and production of active sport tourism. A couple of overlapping evocative vignettes offer a candid insight into how new awareness, attraction, attachment and allegiance have been created from my personal involvement and social interaction with over 200 active ageing athletes, including an inspiring Australian centenarian named Dorothy (Dot) de Low. By sharing my story, I hope to encourage others to stop hiding in the shadows, embrace their subjectivity and share their lived experiences of active sport tourism engagement.     

Heritage sporting events: theoretical development and configurations

ABSTRACT

Although sports heritage is increasingly recognized as a potential catalyst of tourism, heritage sporting events (HSEs) are still an emerging concept in the academic literature. Notions that associate sports events and heritage remain rare, and are usually analysed through the scope of nostalgia sport tourism. This can be partly explained by an inclination to associate the notion of heritage with conventional ideas about folklore and traditional culture. Through a constructivist approach of heritage, this contribution argues that contemporary sports events, which would generally have competition as their primary focus, might also be perceived as HSEs. A comprehensive framework, built on a multi-disciplinary literature review, is presented to show the process that transforms an initial resource (a sports event) into an accomplished resource (a HSE), which might represent a competitive advantage for the territory. A qualitative–comparative analysis is conducted among 24 sports events in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, to observe the configurations of HSEs and understand which characteristics are necessary for the perceptions of a sports event as a heritage good. Interestingly, this contribution shows that if the event needs to be sustainable in the territory to be perceived as a HSE, it is not sufficient. Indeed, a differentiation strategy should be set up to distinguish the event from other more or less similar events, to be perceived as an authentic feature of the territory by the local population.     

Sport,politics and the labour movement: the British workers' sports federation, 1923–1935

Reading articles about the Tarahumara Indians of Northern Mexico that have appeared in popular US magazines, I identify four interlocking themes that constitute the Tarahumaras as a ‘white man's Indian’: a) the Tarahumaras are primitive hunters; b) they eat a simple and healthy diet; c) they complete superhuman feats of endurance; and d) they lack the sense of time/work discipline that would make them successful athletes in Western-style endurance events. These themes constitute the Tarahumaras as noble savages whose supposedly primitive lifestyle offers US runners a solution for the diseases of overcivilization. They also serve the needs of a burgeoning sport/tourism industry that sells stereotypical images of ‘Indians’ to US runners and tourists.     

Prospective tourists’ risk perceptions and intentions to travel to a mega-sporting event host country with apparent risk

ABSTRACT

While the global appeal of the Olympic Games has attracted a massive amount of attention, this increased focus has resulted in heightened risk occurring around the event. Prospective tourists’ growing anxiety related to terrorism and political instability regarding a travel destination could have serious implications on tourism. This article aims to examine the relationship between tourists’ risk perceptions and their intention to travel to an Olympic host country with apparent risks of terrorism and political instability during and around the event period using the case of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games. Terrorism risk was found to have a negative impact on travel intention while political instability did not. The results suggest that potential terrorism risk is a vulnerable point for the host country, and host organisations’ collaborative risk management strategies for minimising potential threats and generating a safe destination image are necessary to attract a higher number of visitors around and during the Olympics. This study contributes to the sport and event tourism literatures by focusing on a specific case. As a result, the findings enable the authors to highlight the impact of terrorism and political instability on travel intentions of prospective tourists to a host country with apparent risks. More specifically, this research discusses the reason(s) for the impact of terrorism and political instability risks on the travel intentions, and calls upon the efforts of future Olympics and mega-sporting event host countries to mitigate the loss of international visitors and to boost global tourism during and after the event.     

澳大利亚利用大型体育赛事开展旅游目的地营销的经验借鉴

澳大利亚是西方较早运用体育赛事进行城市营销、发展旅游业的国家之一。其利用大型体育赛事作为城市形象塑造和品牌推广有相对较长的历史,在体育赛事的开发利用方面有很多可以借鉴的经验和可以吸取的教训。文章通过对其开展的赛事主办地城市营销实践进行回顾和梳理,并归纳总结经验教训,为我国更好更科学的利用大型体育赛事这一手段进行城市品牌营销与形象塑造提供参考。     

An examination of motives underlying active sport tourist behavior: a market segmentation approach

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a preliminary sport tourism motivation scale (STMS) that detected unique active sport tourist segments according to their social psychological motives for traveling to a destination to compete in sport. Segments’ conative loyalty were also analyzed to gain a greater understanding of how underlying motives for sport event tourism influences consumers’ behavioral intentions. A convenient sampling approach was used to collect data from 380 athletes participating in the 2014 GoPro Mountain Games in Colorado. In developing the STMS, items derived from previously validated sport and tourism motivation scales were used to reduce and verify a parceled STMS factor structure. Confirmatory Factor Analysis yielded acceptable psychometric properties. Ward’s Hierarchical cluster analysis identified three segments: tourism-oriented, sport tourism enthusiasts, and sport-oriented. The sport tourism enthusiasts, who exhibited favorable valuations on each of the nine STMS factors, demonstrated elevated conative loyalty characteristics above those of the other two segments. Additionally, the STMS was able to explain 30% of the variation in consumers’ conative loyalty with factors, ‘Destination Attributes’ and ‘Competitive Desire’ being the most influential predictors. Overall, the study’s findings may better equip event managers with information necessary to tailor event service elements which may enhance customer satisfaction and lead to greater retention.     

Youth multi-sport events in Austria: tourism strategy or just a coincidence?

Impact and legacy research of touristic issues has become more popular with the appearance of manifold approaches to examining tourism. In recent years, the region of Western Austria has successfully staged multi-sport youth events, with two being staged in Innsbruck, Tyrol (YOG 2012; ICG 2016) and one in the region of Montafon, Vorarlberg (EYOF, 2015). This leads to the assumption that the high frequency of youth sports events in these regions necessitates and therefore also follows a set hosting policy or at least a strategic approach to event bidding and staging. To examine these assumptions, a mix of desk research and qualitative interviews was chosen, encompassing bidding files, final reports, official tourism statistics, press releases from tourism boards, political working papers, internal documents and interviews with organising committee members, event experts and political representatives. Staging youth sports events is found to have left legacies in Western Austria such as generating immediate overnight stays in the low season and creating a positive image for the host regions, depending on the frequency with which events are staged and affirming the purpose of using events to boost tourism. The host areas lacked a written (youth sport) strategy and unexpectedly, the existing strategies do not include the youth sports events. However, it can be assumed in the case of Innsbruck that a hidden event strategy exists. In conclusion, the study reveals the importance of sharing events and their benefits among the various local stakeholders, thus branding the region as a host city.     

Exploring sport participants’ event and destination choices

ABSTRACT

This study explored the relationship between destination and event elements and an individual’s motivation to travel for sport events. Investigators surveyed participants who were planning to travel or had recently travelled to at least one running, cycling, or triathlon event in the current competitive race season. Data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis, regression, cross-tabulation, and ANOVA. The findings provide empirical evidence that travel behaviours vary by athlete type (runner, triathlete, and cyclist). The results of this study not only add to the push/pull theoretical framework but also provide strong practical implications for both event managers and destination marketers to better package destination attributes and event elements specific to athlete type.     

“动态依附”的体育旅游体验--基于12位川藏骑行穿越者深度访谈

为探究体育旅游体验的构成及内部要素之间的关系,研究从"动态依附"视角观察骑行旅游实践,选取12位沿川藏线(G318)骑行旅游者,采用深度访谈法分析其体验内容及规律。研究发现:骑行旅游体验由场域体验、身体体验、心理体验及体验转向构成,以身体、心理为基础的场域变化为旅游者创造了体验转向的环境,其过程可简要概括为"身心依附",此种结构的生成依赖于"骑行动觉"经验,置身于广泛的生理、心理和文化情境中。研究揭示了体育旅游体验的内部规律,丰富了体育旅游体验领域的理论成果,旨在促进体育旅游产业的高质量发展。     

The relationship between sport tourists’ perceived value and destination loyalty: an experience-use history segmentation approach

ABSTRACT

Understanding active sport tourists’ profiles and nurturing their destination loyalty are important considerations in the tourism market. Loyal tourists are valuable because they tend to revisit a focal destination and elicit positive word-of-mouth. Focusing on a snow-based active sport tourism context, this study was conducted to examine (1) the usefulness of experience-use history (EUH) as a segmentation tool and (2) the relationship between perceived value factors (i.e. quality, emotional response, monetary price, behavioral price, and destination reputation) and destination loyalty in each EUH group. Data were collected from the Niseko ski resort in Japan (N?=?328). Based on the EUH variables (i.e. length and frequency of snow-based sport participation), participants were categorized into four segments (i.e. novice, short-active, long-inactive, and expert). The results showed significant differences among EUH groups in terms of their socio-demographics (e.g. gender, age, and income). A series of regression analyses also showed that each segment’s destination loyalty was uniquely enhanced by perceived value factors. Specifically, perceived quality was a significant antecedent of destination loyalty for sport tourists in the novice group. For those in the short-active, long-inactive, and expert groups, perceived emotional response significantly predicted destination loyalty. Perceived reputation of the destination was also important to enhance destination loyalty for the short-active group whereas perceived monetary price was positively associated with the long-inactive group’s destination loyalty. Marketing managers in snow-based sport tourism destinations can utilize the findings to increase the loyalty of active sport tourists, which will improve their competitiveness in the marketplace.     

体育旅游认识上的“杂”、“乱”、“泛”现象及其原因分析

对当前体育旅游认识上存在的诸多现象及其原因进行分析。我国对体育旅游的定位过"杂",对体育旅游的分类过"乱",对体育旅游项目的归属过"泛"现象较为突出。产生以上现象的主要原因是认识上的感性化明显及缺乏探究精神。