Sport Marketing Quarterly, 2014, 23, 125-126, 2014 West Virginia University

Kostas Alexandris and Kyriaki Kaplanidou

Kostas Alexandris, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Physical Education and Sports Sciences at Aristotle
University in Thessaloniki, Greece. His research interests include consumer behavior in sport, leisure, and tourism services.
Kyriaki Kaplanidou, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Tourism, Recreation & Sport Management at the
University of Florida. Her research interests include sport event image perceptions, sport event consumer behaviors, and
sport events impact on community development.

Sport tourism is one of the fastest growing forms of

special tourism internationally; it is well documented
today that it can contribute towards the economic and
tourism development of local communities, cities,
regions, and countries (Hinch & Higham, 2011). In the
US, for example, the sport event sector is a prominent
one and among the fastest-developing markets within
sport tourism. There was a 10.5% event growth from
2010 through 2012 (Schumacher, 2012). This rise in
the number of sport events that countries, regions, and
communities host denotes the importance of sport
events and sport tourist behaviors for tourism and economic development.
While marketing research in the area of sport events
can advance our theoretical and practical knowledge in
this field, it is still limited. For example, there are not
clear theoretical advancements regarding sport event
tourist behaviors from both the participant and spectator or the sport event media consumer perspectives.
This special issue of Sport Marketing Quarterly aims to
increase academic awareness of the value of marketing
theory in the field of sport events, and present empirical research from four studies conducted in different
sport event settings that utilized different sport event
consumers (participants and sport event media consumers). Collectively, the papers advance our knowledge by proposing that behaviors in sport event
tourism include behavioral intricacies related to characteristics of sport event tourists and the destination
setting that is hosting the sport event.
In the first paper titled Integrating Event Image,
Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intention: Small-Scale
Marathon Event Koo, Byon, and Baker aim to investigate the interactions among event image, satisfaction,
and behavioral intentions in the context of two smallscale marathon events in the US (Mercedes-Benz

Marathon Event and the Publix Marathon Event). The

results of the study indicate that event image and satisfaction were positively associated with behavioral
intentions and that satisfaction partially mediated the
relationship between event image and behavioral
intention. Based on the results, the authors discuss
marketing strategies to attract small-scale event
(marathon) participants. The results of this study further establish our knowledge about the role of event
image perceptions in driving sport tourists behaviors
that benefit the destination given that these events
were recurring events.
In the second paper, Marketing a Social Experience:
How Celebration of Subculture Leads to Social Spending
During a Sport Event, Xing, Chalip, and Green aim to
identify factors (sport culture, social motivation, and
sense of community) that determine tourists amount of
spending (eat in restaurants, drink alcoholic beverages,
shop, and take tours) to support social experiences at an
event. The data were collected from women football
players competing at a three-day U.S. womens football
tournament hosted in the state of Florida. The authors
tested and confirmed a model in which social motivation
is influenced by identification with the womens football
subculture, which predicted the sense of community;
sense of community significantly predicted social spending. The authors conclude that event managers should
foster a sense of community among event participants in
order to enhance social spending. Furthermore, the
authors discuss that social motivation and subcultural
identity are useful tools to promote a sense of community among attendees. This paper advances our knowledge
by showing how intangible consumer attributes such as
identification with a sport subculture, sense of community, and social motivation influence tangible outcomes
for sport event tourism, namely social spending.

Volume 23 Number 3 2014 Sport Marketing Quarterly 125

Guest Editors Introduction

Marketing Sport Event Tourism:

Sport Tourist Behaviors and
Destination Provisions

In the third paper, Motivation, Satisfaction, and

Behavioral Intentions: Segmenting Youth Participants
at the Interamnia World Cup 2012, Prayag and Grivel
aim to segment participants of a youth world handball
tournament (Interamnia World Cup, Italy), according
to their motivations, and further profile them by using
demographics and post-consumption behaviors. The
study concludes that there are four clusters of participants, named as Indifferents, Enthusiasts,
Socializers, and Competitive, which differ by
socio-demographics, overall satisfaction, revisit, and
recommendation intentions. The authors discuss the
profile of these groups and propose marketing strategies to target them. This study contributes to sport
event tourism marketing knowledge by suggesting that
youth event participants attach different weights to
certain event participation motives. This, in turn, creates homogenous motivational profiles that can assist
sport event tourism marketers to achieve effective segmentation strategies in youth markets.
Finally, in the fourth paper titled Impact of Mega
Sport Events on Destination Image and Country
Image, Kim, Kang, and Kim aim to test the degree to
which a mega sport event (2008 Beijing Olympic
Games) positively influenced the country and destination image. These authors applied a pre-post study
design and used South Korean tourists as their sample,
because it is one of the top tourism markets for China.
The authors challenge the assumptions that mega sport
events would necessary lead to positive changes of a
country and destination images, since the results
revealed mixed (both positive and negative) impacts.
Patterns of image change varied according to sport
involvement, media consumption, and previous visit
experiences to the host country. Based on the results,
the authors propose that inter-disciplinary research
should be conducted and integrated marketing strategies should be developed to improve destination and
country images in relation to hosting international
sport events. This study contributes to sport event
tourism marketing by revealing the way in which
tourists involvement with certain aspects of the
Olympic Games and the host country influence the
interplay of destination and country image perceptions
on short haul tourists markets intentions (South
Korea) to buy products from the host country of
China and visit China for tourism.
In conclusion, the four papers comprising the special
issue on marketing sport event tourism show that
sport event tourists can determine certain outcomes
based on their characteristics. These sport event tourist
characteristics either relate to their involvement within
and across the sport activity (e.g., socializing), the destination itself, or result from an interaction of the

event and the destination attributes to create behavioral outcomes relevant to destination marketers.
These outcomes involve revisit intentions, social
spending, and event satisfaction. Moving forward,
future research should examine behaviors that involve
reactions to the sport event experience during the actual experience, given that real-time data through social
media is becoming a mainstream approach in marketing research (Moran, 2012).

References
Hinch, T., & Higham, J. (2011). Sport tourism development (2nd ed.).
Bristol, UK: Channel View Publications.
Moran, R. (2012). The future of marketing research. In R. Kaden, L. Gerald,
& M. Prince (Eds.), Leading edge marketing research: 21st Century tools
and practice (pp. 414-439). London, UK: Sage Publications.
Schumacher, D. G. (2012). Report on the sports travel industry. National
Associations of Sport Commissions (NASC). Retrieved from https://
www.sportscommissions.org/Portals/sportscommissions/Documents/Ab
out/NASC%20Sports%20Travel%20Industry%20Whitepaper.pdf

126 Volume 23 Number 3 2014 Sport Marketing Quarterly

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permission.