Can major sport events attract tourists? A study of media information and explicit memory

ABSTRACT

Major sport events usually receive substantial attention in the media. Therefore, local stakeholders often have hopes that the event will promote the destinations in which these events are hosted by stimulating inbound tourism in the longer term after the event. This study tests a structural model of antecedents to sport tourism empirically on 780 individuals’ responses. The variables researched are: attitudes toward two types of event media information (categorized into sport and host country conditions), explicit memory, and behavioral intentions to visit previous host destinations (nostalgia sport tourism), and future mega events (event sport tourism). The empirical investigation reveals a significant positive influence of attitudes toward media information on explicit memory and sport tourism intentions, and a significant positive effect of explicit memory on sport tourism intentions. The empirical findings suggest that there are two routes from event media information to tourism intentions: one indirect (through explicit memory) and the other, direct. The results indicate that people who are very interested in media information about sport have stronger incentives to visit sports events in the future than to visit previous host of sports events. Those who are most interested in media information about host nations are more likely to visit previous host destinations. These two patterns also correspond with the previous behavior of the respondents.

KEYWORDS:

• Major sport events
• sport tourism
• media information
• memory
• attitudes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.