The Antecedents of Tourists’ Behavioral Intentions at Sporting Events: The Case of South Korea

Abstract

Mega-sporting events can bring diverse benefits to the hosting areas, such as job creation and image improvement. However, only a handful of studies have explored the antecedents of destination image—which plays a crucial role in eliciting certain tourist behaviors—and personal involvement. To fill this gap, this study evaluates the relationships among personal involvement, destination image, place attachment, and behavioral intentions in the context of sporting event tourism to provide destination managers useful information for sustainable sports tourism development. We gathered information from 374 international tourists at the FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation—International Swimming Federation) World Masters Championships Gwangju 2019 in South Korea. We used structural equation modeling was used along with maximum likelihood estimation to examine the predicted relationships. The findings show the positive impacts of (a) personal involvement on destination image, (b) destination image on place attachment, and (c) place attachment on behavioral intentions. Furthermore, (d) place attachment dictated the relationship between destination image and behavioral intentions. The findings confirm the significant role personal involvement plays in the improvement of a destination’s image. To ensure sustainable sports tourism, destination managers are advised to pay close attention to research findings on destination image in the development of their plans.

Making Sense from Experience: How a Sustainable Multi-Sensory Event Spurs Word-of-Mouth Recommendation of a Destination Brand

“…Facing an increasingly global competition for visitor spending, places lean on events as fundamental marketing propositions [44] in order to help individuals feel an emotional connection toward a place or destination [12,45]. The creation and delivery of emotional experiences can create brand differentiation and influence sales, loyalty and brand promotion [46].…”

“…The literature on event sponsorship can also be instructive in this regard. In this domain, event attitude has always been a fundamental construct for evaluating a sponsorship's effectiveness [45,52]. Ref.…”

Influence of Brand Image of a Sports Event on the Recommendation of Its Participants

“…We also find studies such as the study [68] where the antecedents and moderators of the recommendation are analyzed, finding that aspects such as compromise, which is also analyzed in this study, are key. In the context of sporting events, satisfaction has been shown to be a significant predictor of future intentions to attend the event again [69][70][71]. Finally, regarding the analysis of brand image in relation to recommendation, there are studies that have analyzed the relationships that are established between variables such as perceived quality, credibility, and attitudes, as a background for loyalty that is a clear predictor of brand recommendation [72].…”

The Role of Social Capital for Short-Video Platform Users’ Travel Intentions: SEM and Fsqca Findings

“…The sample profile indicated that the short-video platform users were relatively young, hence, the travel agents should fully consider the preference of youths when promoting tourism products in short-video platforms. For instance, young people prefer to take part in sports tourism [140], thus, the tourism organizations could focus on promoting this in the context of short-video platforms.…”